COO Sheryl Sandberg criticises attacks of Facebook gender bias, but is she blind to the company hiring more men than women?
A long-time Facebook employee has claimed that the company rejects 35% more code written by women than men.
Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg adamantly refutes this claim. She references that the social network platform undergoes a six month appraisal of company practices.
However, according to Facebook’s diversity report, there are still discrepancies between male and female hires.
Where is the Facebook gender bias?
In a global breakdown of employee gender in the workplace, the stats reveal:
- 67% of staff are male, while 33% are female
- Non tech areas – 53% are female, while 47% are male
- Tech areas – 83% are male, while 17% are female
- Senior leadership – 73% are male, while 23% are female
Yet, Facebook seems to be aware of the differences in employee gender representation.
The report comments that, “[while] there is a lot of distance to cover in the short, medium, and long term, we’re moving in the right direction.”
Sandberg defends Facebook’s positive attempts at equal hiring. However, the fact remains that the company has more men than women.
Furthermore, the COO is a senior member of staff and higher in the command chain. Thus, it could be argued that her assessment of the situation is not completely objective.
Although she published Lean In, a highly-acclaimed book urging women to be more proactive in the workplace, could she be out of touch with her own female staff?
Facebook isn’t the only company to experience criticism for gender discrepancy.
Pundits also attack Silicone Valley, tech hub and spawning ground for the next millionaire entrepreneur, as having a sexism problem.
The accusations of a Facebook gender bias come from a Wall Street Journal report. The news platform received intelligence from a Facebook engineer whose own research implied a controversial gender discrepancy.
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