Three Ex-Google Women File Pay Gap Lawsuit In California, Inviting Class Action Status

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Three Ex-Google Women File Pay Gap Lawsuit In California, Inviting Class Action Status

Three former Google female employees filed a lawsuit in San Francisco on Thursday, claiming that Google systematically pays women less money and fails to promotes qualified women as frequently as men. The women hope to make their case a class action one, representing all women who have worked at Google since 2013, writes an in-depth analysis of the case and the plaintiffs in Wiredmagazine.

Google is also the subject of a US Department of Labor investigation into potential pay policies that discriminate against women, writes Wired. Preliminary analyses showed large gaps; confirmed anecdotally in data compiled by female Google employees who insist they are paid less than men in most job categories, according to the New York Times.

A spreadsheet, obtained by The New York Times, contains salary and bonus information for 2017 that was shared by about 1,200 United States Google employees, or about 2 percent of the company’s global work force.

Related: An Inquiring Mind In High Gear: GE's Molly Vows Never To Take Out The Trash Again Or Mow The Lawn

White Male Google Engineer Writes 8-Pg Manifesto, Saying Women's Genetic Differences, Not Sexism, Is Their Problem

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White Male Google Engineer Writes 8-Pg Manifesto, Saying Women's Genetic Differences, Not Sexism, Is Their Problem

A white male engineer at Google's Mountain View office made big news this weekend, publishing an essay that blasted the company's efforts to recruit women, people of color and other minorities into its ranks and leadership positions. 

The backlash has been ferocious, but many believe that the engineer's words reflect the widespread mentality among white men -- a totally dominant hierarchy in tech -- that women and other minorities do not have the mental capacity to meet the standards set by their superior white male minds and competencies.

Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

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Lida Azizi (left) and Kawsar Roshan in Herat, building a self-driving miniature rickshaw decked with Afghan and American flags. Photograph: Sune Engel Rasmussen

Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

In the days of Trump, we are learning to accept small wins and tiny pleasures. Progressive women got a dose of pure delight on Wednesday -- Pakistan's heroic Malala Yousafzai's birthday -- when news broke that the US State Dept had reversed its refusal to grant visas to six Afghan female students to travel to Washington DC for the FIRST Global international robotics competition next week. 

The international backlash against an absurd decision that allowed the team from Iran and five other countries listed by the Trump administration in their disputed Muslim ban to come to the competition while denying visas to the Afghan girls team looked like unadulterated sexism by the Trump administration. Countless individuals and organizations accused Trump -- who is rolling back women's rights in America -- of retreating from America's previous efforts that support the education of young women in Afghanistan. 

Gambia, the only other country to be denied a visa, will also be coming to Washington. 

Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

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Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

Last week the US Supreme Court temporarily approved parts of Trump's travel ban, preventing visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US without an approved family connection, employee or student status or other pre-existing relationship. The Court will issue a full ruling when it resumes its caseload in the fall. 

One of the first casualties of the new travel ban are six teenage girls -- an all-girl robotics team of young engineers from Afghanistan -- determined to participate in an international science competition scheduled for mid-July in Washington, DC.

Denied a one-week travel visa to participate in the FIRST Global Challenge, the team has already risked their lives in Afghanistan, travelling twice under the reality of truck bombings to Kabul in April. The Afghan team members are from Towhid, Malakai Jalalai and Hoze Karbas High Schools. The trip from their small town near Herat to Kabul was to complete their visa applications. Nothing about the scientific competition was easy for these young women. Other global competitors received their box of raw materials in March. When their own box was held up amid concerns about terrorism, the young engineers improvised, building their motorized machines from household materials, writes The Washington Post. 

Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan's first female tech CEO and founder of Citadel software, who brought the girls together, told Forbes that the girls "were crying all day." While the exact reason for the visa denial remains confidential, only 112 business travel visa from Afghanistan were granted in May 2017, compared to 780 business travel visas from Iraq and 4,067 from Pakistan.

Hillary Clinton Returns In Fighting Form Imploring Us To: RESIST, INSIST, PERSIST, ENLIST!

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Hillary Clinton speaking in at the Professional Business Women of California’s annual conference in San Francisco, 3/28/17. Vogue photo courtesy of AP

“Obviously, the outcome of the election wasn’t the one I hoped for, worked for, but I will never stop speaking out,” Clinton said on Tuesday night at the Professional Business Women of California’s annual conference in San Francisco. “I am thrilled to be out of the woods, in the company of so many inspiring women.”

Clinton delivered a four-word mantra to the crowd which was focused on women and diversity in the workplace: RESIST, INSIST, PERSIST, ENLIST! Almost five months after the election, Clinton is not only back, but blazing writes Michelle Ruiz for Vogue.  

I'm fighting for a fairer, big-hearted, inclusive America. And the unfinished business of the 21st century can't wait any longer . . . Now is the time to demand the progress we want to see . . . and I'll be right there with you every step of the way."

Clinton criticized Trump for having the fewest number of women in top jobs "in a generation", with four women out of 23 positions. She called out White House press secretary Sean Spicer who told American Urban Radio Networks House correspondent April Ryan "Please, stop shaking your head" during Tuesday's press briefing.  "Too many women have had a lifetime of practice taking this kind of indignity in stride," Clinton said.

Hillary also had choice words regarding Bill O'Reilly's recent comment about Rep. Maxine Waters's (D-Calif) hair. 

The Fox New host called it a "James Brown wig," an insult that some interpreted as racist and sexist. Since Trump's election, Waters has repeatedly blasted the president's rhetoric and agenda.

"One of our own California congressmen Maxine Waters was taunted with a racist joke about her hair," Clinton said on Tuesday. "Too many women, especially women of color, have had a lifetime of practice taking precisely these kinds of indignities in stride."

"But why should we have to?" she said. "And any woman who thinks this couldn’t be directed at her is living in a dream world."

Clinton called on Silicon Valley to improve diversity and inclusion, particularly by introducing paid parental leave policies. 

“These are not buzzwords to throw around or boxes to check,” Clinton said. “A crucial part of solving these problems is recognizing that, important as it is, corporate feminism is no substitute for inclusive concrete solutions that improve life for women everywhere.”

In Ruiz' words: "She's back, and here's hoping she is as nasty a woman as ever!"

Virtual Reality: A Futuristic Vision In Which Women Play In Equal Incubators

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Virtual Reality: A Futuristic Vision In Which Women Play In Equal Incubators AOC Front Page Women's News

A mere tech child or not, virtual reality is expected to be a $150 billion industry by 2020. Silicon Valley and gaming Internet culture in general are known for their hard-ass mentality about women in their midst. Because virtual reality is truly an original opportunity for creators, women are -- for once -- operating in a relatively level playing field. There is “no formalized industry, and therefore no industry hierarchy, making it particularly welcoming to outsiders and newcomers,” explains Julia Kaganskiy, director of the New Museum’s New Inc. incubator. “Effectively everyone is a newcomer, and there are virtually no insiders.”

Ethan Czahor's Women R 'Sluts' Comments Not A Fireable Offence For Jeb Bush, As Race Comments Bring Him Down

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Ethan Czahor’s Women R ‘Sluts’ Comments Not A Fireable Offence For Jeb Bush, As Race Comments Bring Him Down

Sorry Ethan Czahor. Yale women fight being called sluts, too. Wise up and get some fact-based political religion on this topic. ~ Anne

Boys Club | Harvard Study Suggests Anti-Women Policies Greatest Barrier To Women's Success | Amazon Has NO Senior Women Execs | Women Computer Programmers Drop In Half

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French Roast News

Anne is reading …

Stop Blaming Women for Holding Themselves Back at Work New York Magazine

The Harvard Business School surveyed three generations of 25,000 MBA graduates of Harvard Business School, in a serious effort to understand why there aren’t more women in the corner office. Their exhaustive study concludes that the problem isn’t that ambitious women are insufficiently tough, savvy or competitive at work. At least among the Harvard grads, the problem isn’t that the women are diverted during their 30s and 40s by wanting to breast-feed when they should be test prepping. The women are not ‘opting out’ or failing to ‘lean in’, deciding instead to ‘ratchet back’.

The authors found no correlation at all between career success and decisions an individual makes to accommodate family, by limiting travel, choosing more flexible hours, or moving laterally within a company.

It is true that women were more likely than men to have made such decisions. But men at the top often made demands that accommodated their family lives.

Very few commentators in all the recent bloviating about female success have come out and said what the HBR authors have: that the problem lies with the culture in the workplace itself. Most women work full-time through their child-rearing years, and yet they achieve less than men at work  (measured by numbers of direct reports, bottom-line responsibility, and senior-management status) because, well, they’re women. There are wide gaps between the way women envision their futures (professionally, as well as domestically) and the way those futures evolve over time not because of the choices they make, necessarily, but because the systems within which they live are entrenched and fundamentally sexist.

The Harvard Business School concludes that women should stop blaming themselves or saying they must try harder.

 … as the HBS study reminds us, when there’s a whole lot of trying without commensurate succeeding, then you have to start to consider that the game is rigged.

Amazon Employs 18 Women Among 120 Senior Managers The Guardian

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has made a ton of money selling books to women on how to succeed in business. Within his own Amazon business model, it seems the few women are able to work their way up the Amazon ladder. Bezos employs only 18 women among his 120 most serior managers, and has no direct female reports.

An all-male group of 12 men — known internally as the S Team — runs Amazon. Of the 18 women in senior management, 13 are executive assistants. 

Amazon may consider itself to be a great innovator, but when the topic is promoting and developing the careers of women in the company, it reads like ‘Mad Men’ to me.

Secrets of Silicon Valley (That Only Women Know) Glamour

Women comprise only 26 percent of the computing workforce. It gets worse, today only 18 percent of undergraduate computer science degress go to women — a number that has dropped in half from a high of 37 percent in 1985.

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Eye | American Parenting As Religion | Elizabeth Holmes Billionaire | Kurdish Women Fighters Update

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Redtracker

Kurdish Fighter Ceylan Ozalp Said To Be Alive

I just checked in again on the incredibly brave women — about 1/3 of Kurdish forces — fighting ISIS in Syria. My heart dropped with reports that Ceylan Ozalp (wearing blk/wht checked hat), the woman who said ISIS shakes when confronted with women fighters, had committed suicide with her last bullet. SHE IS ALIVE and not in Kobane came reports just now from reliable sources. However, another young woman did commit suicide rather than be taken. Three Kurdish women fighters and seven men were beheaded by ISIS this week in Kobane. Please take a minute to honor the spirits of these brave people, and especially the Kurdish women fighters.

Previously: Kurdish Women Fighters In Syria Say ISIS Fears Women Soldiers So Much They Shake AOC Salon

Parenting As Religion

How American Parenting Is Killing American Marriage  QZ.com

Physician and researcher Danielle Teller and husband Astro Teller, head of Google X, recently published a book Sacred Cows: The Truth about Divorce and Marriage  focused on society’s “nonsensical but deeply ingrained beliefs surrounding marriage and divorce.”

 It seems only logical then, that the duo will next take on parenting. Calling American parenthood a ‘religion’, the Tellers refer to Ayelet Waldman’s 2005 essay in The New York Times, where she explained that she loves her husband more than her children.

The earth shook beneath Waldman’s feet as thousands of readers threatened to burn her at the stake.

Lab Grown Organ Transplants

The lab-grown penis: approaching a medical milestone The Guardian

Since 1992, Anthony Atala and his colleagues have worked on the premise that penises could be grown in a laboratory and then transplanted to humans. He believes that in the next five years, his first penis transplant will occur.

Penises aren’t the only focus of Atala and his team. In 2005 they implanted the first vagina — one of four. Eight years later, all four vaginas have normal structure and function. Earlier in 1999, Atala’s group completed their first laboratory-grown bladder transplant made from the patient’s own cells.

Simplifying the Blood Test

This Woman’s Revolutionary Idea Made Her A Billionaire — And Could Change Medicine Business Insider

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