Experts are saying that the Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins gender-discrimination case was probably a wake-up call for the tech and venture industries, Julia Love wrote for the Mercury News over the weekend. Pao, who lost her $16 million lawsuit against Kleiner less than two weeks ago, continues to talk about the workplace gender issues her case brought up.
Notable quotes from Pao s first interviews after the trial, which she granted to the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo s Katie Couric:
To the WSJ, Pao repeated what she said in a statement immediately after the March 27 verdict: That she did what she had to do, and that she felt she touched others by telling her story.
I m glad I did it. But it was hard.
She shared with Couric some letters she received from supporters during the trial. To the WSJ, she said:
There were people who shared stories that they hadn t told other people, that they bottled up for many years. It was very inspiring to hear people share their stories and to feel this bond.
She also addressed that some people thought she wasn t the right point person for this issue. During the trial, the defense portrayed Pao as hard to work with, perhaps unlikable. (Our Michelle Quinn wrote that Pao was an imperfect cause celebre.)
I think everybody has their own perspective, and some people can t relate to me, and that s okay.
Along those same lines, Pao talked about the difficulties women face of trying to strike a balance between too aggressive and too timid.
Women get criticized on both ends, and you have this needle that you have to thread, and sometimes it feels like there s no hole in the needle. From what I ve heard from women, they do feel like there s no way to win. They can t be aggressive and get those opportunities without being treated like they ve done something wrong.
As Heather Somerville wrote, it was revealed during the trial that among the topics of conversation at Kleiner were porn stars, the Playboy Mansion, Victoria s Secret and which women would make the hottest board members. To Couric s question about whether bad behavior might be more acceptable in the tech industry, Pao said:
I think so. You ve got people who are used to not following rules and they don t know where the boundaries for behavior are. And it works for them in one aspect of their careers, where they take risks and build product and people like it and they get rewarded for it.
Pao also talked about death by a thousand cuts when it comes to the missed opportunities for women in the workplace. (Among the examples brought up during the trial was an all-male ski trip, and a dinner at Al Gore s apartment that was attended by men only.)
[Women] come in and they don t get opportunities, because people bring them to the person that was at the drinking outing the night before with them, or the person who s their best golf buddy, or the person who goes shooting with them.
What can be done about all this? Pao told the WSJ it takes work and getting past being uncomfortable about it.
Hoping they go away is not realistic. You need to work through these issues and you can t just hide from them, because they are here and they re not going to go away.
Photo: Ellen Pao arrives at Superior Court in San Francisco, Calif., March 10, 2015, for her second day on the stand in a gender discrimination trial against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)