Pinterest Employees Walk Out in Demand for Equality

Pinterest has made a different place for itself, people now have started to turn towards Pinterest to escape their daily boredom and add freshness to their life. The collection of images from home decor, wardrobes, clothes, manicured lawns gardens to personal computers, and anything that is possible on earth is available on Pinterest. The way Pinterest amuses its customers is in very much contrast to what Female employees in Pinterest feel. The company last week saw a virtual protest where female employees logged off their computers to mark their discomfort relating to racial and gender inequality that prevails in the tech company. A blog post named “The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity,” from the company’s former COO, Françoise Brougher said that the company follows sex discrimination, her blog it also says  “Although 70 percent of Pinterest’s users are women, the company is steered by men with little input from female executives. Pinterest’s female executives, even at the highest levels, are marginalized, excluded, and silenced. I know because until my firing in April, I was Pinterest’s chief operating officer.” Brougher alleges that Pinterest fired her not for the results she achieved, but for not being “collaborative.” She wrote, “I believe that I was fired for speaking out about the rampant discrimination, hostile work environment, and misogyny that permeates Pinterest.” Her tweet supports the walkout and she writes, “Feeling empowered and grateful by all of the voices joining together on this issue! I stand in solidarity with the Pinterest employees participating in today’s walkout. When we speak out, we create change!” In search of more evidence, one needs to look back at the month of June where two former Pinterest employees Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks revealed their experiences with the company on Twitter. Ozoma claimed, “As a Black woman, seeing @Pinterest’s middle of the night “Black employees matter” statement made me scratch my head after I just fought for over a full year to be paid and leveled fairly…” Banks, in her tweets, says, “My manager made disparaging comments about my ethnicity in front of my team, and later about another woman colleague’s Jewish heritage in relation to those earlier comments. It was wild. When I reported this to HR, their response was that even though he had made those statements, he had no “ill intent” and therefore not violated @pinterest’s code of conduct. And this is when the retaliation began. Sadly, many women of color were complicit in this retaliation.” Currently, two petitions are gaining online support, one of the petitions asks Pinterest to pay its black employees what it owes them. And the other petition is directed towards CEO Ben Silbermann to put an end to all forms of discrimination and retaliation at Pinterest. Pinterest has made a different place for itself, people now have started to turn towards Pinterest to escape their daily boredom and add freshness to their life. The collection of images from home decor, wardrobes, clothes, manicured lawns gardens to personal computers, and anything that is possible on earth is available on Pinterest. The way Pinterest amuses its customers is in very much contrast to what Female employees in Pinterest feel. The company last week saw a virtual protest where female employees logged off their computers to mark their discomfort relating to racial and gender inequality that prevails in the tech company. A blog post named “The Pinterest Paradox: Cupcakes and Toxicity,” from the company’s former COO, Françoise Brougher said that the company follows sex discrimination, her blog also says  “Although 70 percent of Pinterest’s users are women, the company is steered by men with little input from female executives. Pinterest’s female executives, even at the highest levels, are marginalized, excluded, and silenced. I know because until my firing in April, I was Pinterest’s chief operating officer.” Brougher alleges that Pinterest fired her not for the results she achieved, but for not being “collaborative.” She wrote, “I believe that I was fired for speaking out about the rampant discrimination, hostile work environment, and misogyny that permeates Pinterest.” Her tweet supports the walkout and she writes, “Feeling empowered and grateful by all of the voices joining together on this issue! I stand in solidarity with the Pinterest employees participating in today’s walkout. When we speak out, we create change!” In search of more evidence, one needs to look back at the month of June where two former Pinterest employees Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks revealed their experiences with the company on Twitter. Ozoma claimed, “As a Black woman, seeing @Pinterest’s middle of the night “Black employees matter” statement made me scratch my head after I just fought for over a full year to be paid and leveled fairly…” Banks, in her tweets, says, “My manager made disparaging comments about my ethnicity in front of my team, and later about another woman colleague’s Jewish heritage in relation to those earlier comments. It was wild. When I reported this to HR, their response was that even though he had made those statements, he had no “ill intent” and therefore not violated @pinterest’s code of conduct. And this is when the retaliation began. Sadly, many women of color were complicit in this retaliation.” Currently, two petitions are gaining online support, one of the petitions asks Pinterest to pay its black employees what it owes them. And the other petition is directed towards CEO Ben Silbermann to put an end to all forms of discrimination and retaliation at Pinterest.