An ex-PlayStation employee has filed a lawsuit against the company, and more and more people are joining her with testimonies…

Last year, Emma Majo filed a lawsuit against PlayStation, so like the trio of Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Riot, Sony seems to have significant issues with discrimination against women. Meanwhile, Majo has also raised the case with women working at PlayStation to bring a class action against the company. A few of them responded to the call, saying that they too were saying that an anti-women work culture had developed under Jim Ryan (Sony Interactive Entertainment’s CEO and president).

Sony, as expected, denies it but if more than one person has made a damning statement, there is a problem. The new details came to light because Sony wanted to call off the proceedings before Majo’s lawyer submitted the latest information. Seven former employees and one who still works there have come forward and given written statements detailing sexism at several PlayStation offices in the US. Sexual harassment, discrimination against mothers, systemic struggles…

Marie Harrington worked at PlayStation and Sony Online Entertainment for over sixteen years. It was evident through her ‘calibration meetings’ that there was little thought to promote women in senior management. One such meeting was in April 2019, and only four women were considered for promotion compared to nearly seventy male employees. A male employee’s bullying behaviour was reported to a manager regarding whether this could be addressed before PlayStation became national news because of the situation. Male employees evaluate women based on looks and then share pictures and dirty jokes about them. One engineer asked Harrington not to wear a skirt to work because it bothered him. The male engineers reportedly went to strip clubs during lunch breaks and shared pornographic content.

Kara Johnson had previously worked as a programme manager. She was aware that ten women were leaving her office in Rancho Bernando, California, four months before her departure, and it had alerted her to systemic problems. After the launch of PlayStation 5, it was to be expected that a certain amount of departures would occur, and the high proportion of women set the alarm bells ringing in the management. Another former employee worked with four other women in the San Mateo and San Francisco offices. All left for the same reason (sexual discrimination, harassment, lack of promotion). The men said the women did not understand technology, and during one off-site work event, a senior manager tried to grope one of them.

Unfortunately, the document mentions that other women were approached, but they declined to comment for fear of punishment… so it’s a sad state of affairs in Sony‘s backyard.

Source: WCCFTech