Uber sexism under investigation after female engineer's 'slightly horrifying' story

Uber has launched an investigation into claims of sexual harassment after a former female Uber engineer wrote a blog post describing her time at the ride-hailing company as “strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying.”

Writer and engineer Susan Fowler wrote on her personal blog about her year at Uber as an engineer, calling the company "an organization in complete, unrelenting chaos."

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She described an incident in which her new team manager propositioned her for sex, but human resources employees said it was the manager’s first offense, so they gave him a warning. But Fowler wrote, after talking with other women there, she realized that many had dealt with the same behavior from the same manager.

“It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being ‘his first offense,’ and it certainly wasn't his last,” she wrote.

“The situation was escalated as far up the chain as it could be escalated, and still nothing was done.”

She described other incidents of sexism and said the number of women engineers dropped from about 25 percent of the 150-member team to fewer than 3 percent in the year she was there.

“What's described here is abhorrent and against everything we believe in,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a tweet on Sunday.

“Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.”

Kalanick ordered an “urgent investigation” into Fowler’s claims, saying in a tweet: “There can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber.”

It was the latest public relations headache for Uber, which dealt with bad publicity recently when it gave lower-priced rides in New York during a taxi drivers’ boycott over President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban. Uber riders also protested after Kalanick’s decision to join Trump’s economic advisory council, which he has since decided against.

Cox Media Group