October 27, 2014
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, recently faced some much-deserved criticism for his comments at a conference celebrating women in computing.
To his credit, Mr. Nadella, has since owned that he misspoke and has tried to withdraw his statement that women should not ask for raises, instead they should keep quiet and wait for “karma.”
Fortunately, conference attendee and Microsoft board member, Maria M. Klawe, didn’t take Nadella’s advice to keep quiet. At the end of Nadella’s address, select audience members were allowed to respond, and Ms. Klawe took the opportunity to tell the CEO that she disagreed with him. Her remarks were met with cheers from the audience.
Today’s link features an article from Care2.com wherein author, Ximena Ramirez, writes about the sexism that worked its way into the Microsoft CEO’s address, even though he knew he was speaking at a conference to honor women!
“Read between the lines and you’ll see that what Nadella is really saying is: ‘be the kind of woman society tells you to be. …we will reward you one day when we see fit.’ Asking women to fall into these stereotypical boxes with the promise of a reward (a reward for doing their job well, a reward that their male counterparts don’t have to ask for but are given freely) is incredibly insulting.”
Read Ms. Ramirez’s article here.
