Women Bring Class Action Lawsuit Against Microsoft

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

With everything else being a raging dumpster fire, I nearly forgot for 5 seconds that women are still treated like absolute shit in the workplace:

Women at Microsoft Corp working in U.S.-based technical jobs filed 238 internal complaints about gender discrimination or sexual harassment between 2010 and 2016, according to court filings made public on Monday.

The figure was cited by plaintiffs suing Microsoft for systematically denying pay raises or promotions to women at the world's largest software company. Microsoft denies it had any such policy.

The lawsuit, filed in Seattle federal court in 2015, is attracting wider attention after a series of powerful men have left or been fired from their jobs in entertainment, the media and politics for sexual misconduct.

Plaintiffs' attorneys are pushing to proceed as a class action lawsuit, which could cover more than 8,000 women.

Damn. That's more than 10 percent of the entire company, which "had about 74,000 U.S. employees at the end of last year."

Out of 118 gender discrimination complaints filed by women at Microsoft, only one was deemed "founded" by the company, according to details in the unsealed court filings.

Attorneys for the women called the number of complaints "shocking" in the court filings and the response by Microsoft's investigations team "lackluster."

Fucking hell.

Obviously, this will be a case to keep our eyes on, as it could have ramifications for the tech industry, and possibly all of corporate America, if systematic gender discrimination is established, despite Microsoft not having an official policy to deny female employees raises and promotions.