I'm glad you asked this question because it's something that has been on my mind, and that I've discussed with several people since the Uber news came out. So, here we go.
The problem is not sexism, but that the human mind tends to focus on the wrong problem to solve. The real problem is simply, "morally bad people." Think about that for a second... Now, think about it some more..... And a little bit more! I use the term "morally bad" because these people may be highly skilled, as it sounds like may have been the case with this woman's original boss at the Uber company, hence HR was so hesitant to remove him. Or perhaps his dad was a C-level executive, who knows.
Bad people use anything they can against others. It's extremely easy to get distracted by the "implementation details" (sexism, racism, prejudice, rude and mean gestures, trash talking behind ones back, asking you to stay and work fri night so they can go out with another co-worker, etc...) but the big picture matters more. I'm not even a woman but I guarantee you that the same people at that company would find some way to do something wrong to me... Unless I had connections with them and they liked me, but that would be a volatile situation and as soon as they didn't like me any more, the games would start.
How do I know this? I have personal experience with it. I've observed one particular previous supervisor who would play these types of games all the time. First, he didn't like me, so he did that with me, then he began to like me, and the same behaviors that he allowed me to do, he would reprimand others for (reading a book at work, using my cell phone, listening to music, etc...). When I got on his "good side", he would allow these things and write other people up/fire them for doing these same things!
However, he is not "anti-book," "anti-cell phone" or "discriminating against musicians," he's just a jerk with lousy moral upbringing, to be honest.
So the question may be raised "Why is it important to focus on the big picture... On not hiring jerks... Or more importantly, firing these types of people? (and I say firing because let's be real, it's impossible to know in a day or two interview who these people are)"
Because this allows us to address the root of the problem - evil people, bad morals, no ethics, etc...
One thing I've noticed in my life experience and as a counselor to others, is that bad people tend to be bad. When I think they are singling me out, they may appear to be, but when more time passes, I realize they also treat their wife like dirt, their kids like crap, or other co-workers. These are people who have deep problems, and frankly, they need to work them out on their own time.
You may think I'm digging too deep here, but this is reality and trying to simplify this kind of stuff to "omg ppl so sexist" frankly is the reason why these things continue to happen. Everyone says they don't want gang members in the neighborhood, but nobody fixes the social problems that are putting them there. What do we do when we want to solve a programming problem? We break it down into small units of work - i.e. we divide and conquer, we reduce requirements/constraints until we can solve the problem and then we get bigger... The same thing needs to be applied here... I guarantee you Uber doesn't go out and say "let's get some sexist managers up in here!" No company ever does - but what they fail to do is police their people... It becomes some kind of brotherhood (or sisterhood in some cases - let's not rule that out either), and if you aren't in the "in crowd" with the right people, evil things get repeatedly and routinely overlooked. This actually has little to do with sexism at all and it can happen with anything. If it wasn't about sexism in this case, perhaps they would play games on the most emotionally weak guy in the bunch, the one who is least social, the one who doesn't work out, the newest person, etc... The possibilities are endless... But the cause is very finite. This happens because the people themselves are assholes (or in a more PC way, they have moral compass and ethical problems).
So, how do we solve these types of problems? Better policing and polling within organizations - HR needs to make anonymous surveys and follow-up with them on a routine basis, and they also need to have contacts in every department who is trained to report certain behaviors where people are not being treated well on a repeated basis... This can be socially tricky but it _can _be implemented properly. People often say "Well, HR is only out to protect the company." This is _absolutely true._ But guess what? Happy workers who love what they do and don't get treated poorly is protecting the company!
Company's have to realize that if somebody is doing a "great job" but is being an asshole to others, yes, that means they need to take action. Unfortunately, they often don't.
Now, I want to go back to the main point of this article real fast one last time - the implementation details and how much damage the focus on them does... For some reason, it is easier as humans for us to focus on implementation of evil rather than the evil itself. This implementation comes in many shapes and forms as aforementioned - racism, hate, sexism, jealousy, "having a short fuse", sexual abuse, verbal abuse, straight-up rudeness, injustice (falsely accusing someone of something and they lose their job or don't get a promotion), etc..
But what's the underlying problem there? Nice, respectable people who had a level-head and are not evil don't do any of those things! Sure, they may have a bad day and slip something out of the mouth once or twice every so often, but there's a whole difference between that and doing what people at Uber (allegedly) did. Sexism is a conclusion and a manifestation of a deeper problem from within someone... Yet we for some reason love to constantly blame it for everything... Same with racism - and this one I do have personal experience with as I am a person of color who has been surrounded primarily by caucasians and been able to see how people reason about race. We try to blame the manifested/developed problems rather than the root. And what happens is we get no where. How can Uber fix this problem when in their mind, they aren't purposely hiring sexist people??? Another reason why this is bad is because let's say a company fixes their sexist problem.... Now they have racist people... Then they fix that, now they have jerks who overwork their employees without paying them properly.... Finally, they fix all that, and now they have a bunch of lousy workers who don't get work done, Etc... That's not good.
So it's important to focus on the right problems in these situations, and the universal one that most people don't seem to want to take responsibility for is not just hiring but maintaining an unforced, positive work environment. This does not mean pamper the wimps and whiners who just do a bad job, but this means that if someone is there to work hard and learn, they deserve as much respect as the CEO... And this is regardless of race, gender, religion, social status, or sexual orientation. Thanks for reading.