Forgive my ignorance, who’s this Pao?

Pao’s an American business executive who has been hogging headlines across the globe thanks to one of the highest profile gender-discrimination lawsuits ever to come out of Silicon Valley. And now she is being compared to the likes of Rosa Parks.

Wow! What’s her case?

Pao, now the interim CEO of Reddit, was suing prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She was a junior partner in the company. Pao alleged that the company had failed to promote her despite her performance and after she wrote a memo alleging gender discrimination it gave her the pink slip. According to Pao, this was clearly a case of gender discrimination.

And she took them to court?

Exactly. She first filed a suit against Kleiner in 2012, and the case went to trial in February 2015. Pao demanded $16 million from Kleiner Perkins for lost income and compensation for other damages. Together, the compensation sought reached up to $100 million. Finally, on March 27, a San Francisco court delivered the verdict in the case — which publicly challenged the much celebrated notion that in Silicon Valley, industriousness and intelligence always won over any other criteria.

And the ruling was...?

Well, Pao lost. The jury of six men and six women did not agree with her claims of gender discrimination. It endorsed Kleiner Perkins’ argument that Pao was fired only because she was a bad employee.

Oh!

But women’s rights activists and many analysts believe that the case is a landmark one for many reasons. First, it exposed the allegedly all-male character of the world’s most famous technology hub, and forced many companies, tech as well as non-tech, to introspect on how they have been treating their women employees.

Come to think of it, we don’t get to hear about many women in the Valley.

Indeed. There have been many reports uncovering this not-so-great picture of the Valley. Many say the atmosphere is toxic and aggressive in the venture capital or angel investor industry where women are constantly marginalised and excluded from key events and programmes.

Ha! All male angels?

A study by Babson College shows that in the US, the VC industry is only 6 per cent female, against 10 per cent in 1999. Industry observers say these folks invest mostly in male-led firms. Estimates say only 15 per cent of startups that received VC funding from 2011 to 2013 had a woman on the executive team. So, people think Pao’s case has shed light on the misogynist side of companies in general and tech/VC sectors in particular. In fact, two separate lawsuits were filed against Facebook and Twitter recently, alleging they denied promotion on the ground of gender. That’s why the likes of Barbara Clarke, angel investor and member of Astia Angels NYC which funds women-led startups, says she is grateful to Pao for pushing forward with the case, even though she wasn’t surprised by the verdict.

True, sexism is a charge difficult to prove…

Yes. Clarke cites the example of the much-publicised testimony of Anita Hill almost 20 years ago against judge Clarence Thomas. Despite the charges, Thomas became a Supreme Court justice, but it changed the way women were treated in offices.

Hope Pao’s case will trigger such a trend.

It’s tough as things stand now in Silicon Valley. Still there’s optimism in the air, reflected in the fact that a group of female tech workers got together to place a full-page newspaper ad thanking Pao for speaking out.

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