By now, you’ve no doubt heard the sexist “joke” that TPG Capital co-founder and Uber board member David Bonderman told Tuesday during an all-staff meeting about an investigation into Uber’s cultural issues, including claims of sexism and sexual harassment.
But to recap, fellow board member and media mogul Arianna Huffington was pointing out that adding a female board member increases the odds of bringing on an additional woman. Bonderman laughed off the evidence. “Actually, what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking,” he said, according to an audio recording obtained by Yahoo.
There is—of course—a stereotype that women, when in the same room, do nothing but gab, gab, gab. But, as Huffington Post‘s Emily Peck points out, there’s research that shows it’s actually men who can’t shut up.
A 2012 study by professors at Princeton and Brigham Young found that among 94 groups of five people—with varied gender make-ups—men talked far more than women at meetings.
“The study shows that men will dominate the conversation if there are more men than women in the group, and they dominate by a lot,” one of the study’s authors, Tali Mendelberg, said in an interview. “When you have just two women in the group, those women are much more silent than men are.”
So not only did Bonderman show poor taste and even worse timing—factually, his statement was wrong. And his joke served as further proof since he interrupted Huffington to make it.
EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA
On Wednesdays, we wear white Women in Iran are wearing white headscarves and white clothing every Wednesday to protest a law that forces women to wear a head covering. BBC
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THE AMERICAS
ASIA-PACIFIC
IN BRIEF
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This post has been updated to clarify Accenture's gender diversity goal.