So many sexual harassment in the workplace lawsuits! And apparently so many start-ups and/or apps or whatever those things that everybody except me plays with on the subway. (Today I noticed that subway riders over 60 read real books, under 50s read e-books, while everybody else plays with screens.)
Here’s a NYT story by Jenna Wortham that seems to join all of the above themes (each of which has an app button, I guess):
Whitney Wolfe, a former executive at the popular dating start-up Tinder, has filed a lawsuit against the company, along with its majority owner, IAC/InterActiveCorp, that claims sexual harassment and discrimination.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in state court in Los Angeles, says that Tinder’s chief executive and chief marketing officer subjected Ms. Wolfe to “a barrage of horrendously sexist, racist and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails and text messages.” Ms. Wolfe’s suit also said that complaints about the harassment to high-level executives at IAC were ignored and that she was forced to resign as a result.
Ms. Wolfe said in the lawsuit that even though she was instrumental in the establishment of the dating app, her colleague did not call her a founder because of her age and gender. When she would ask why only her name among the five founders was absent, the lawsuit said, the other founders would tell her “you’re a girl” and that a 24-year-old “girl founder” would devalue the company.
Boy − and I use that gender term specifically − I hope Ms. Wolfe’s lawsuit holds up under scrutiny because it seems that her male colleagues have muddled logic. (Just one quick thought: aren’t “girls” one of the multiple targets of a dating site?)
I guess we can’t call the obstacle Ms. Wolfe has run into a glass ceiling, because those teeny screens aren’t glass, are they?