Friday’s ✊Boss Betty ✊ Newsletter: Maternity leave is ‘vacation’ at WeWork & other things we’re either irate about or celebrating

Remember the last newsletter when we mentioned that maybe WeWork could have avoided some of its “issues” if it had more women in charge? Here’s one of those “case-in-point” points: Ousted CEO Adam Neumann’s former chief of staff Medina Bardhi filed a discrimination claim against the co-working company alleging she was demoted twice because she was pregnant and that a male hired to replace her was paid twice as much. Bardhi also claimed that WeWork fostered a sexist workplace culture and that maternity leave was referred to as “vacation” at the company. W. T. F. Please compare and contrast images to the left and right and let us know what conclusion you come to, Adam, who has like a bazillion children and should know from Adam.

Moving right along, Google has updated its definition of Googleyness — assumedly that je ne sais quoi combo of smarts and forward-thinking that makes someone a good fit for them — in an effort to stave off bias in the hiring process. Apparently the old definition still stands, but Google added instructions to its hiring guide advising employees to “avoid confusing Googleyness with culture fit, which can leave room for bias.” The thinking is that the once en vogue “culture fit” requirement leads to the hiring of staffers who mirror the existing employee base and does not foster diversity. It’s all kind of confusing, and it seems some Googlers agree, according to this article from The Information.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t include some super sad stats for you, so here comes a few: Women still hold just 16.9 percent of board seats worldwide — 30 years to parity at this point! — and men hold 94.7 percent of board chair positions and 95.6 percent of CEO roles. Also, just three of the 28 lawyers set to argue in front of the Supreme Court in November are women, and five of those 25 men have already done so this term.

But let’s end on a (questionably) high note! Aspiring attorney Kim Kardashian dressed up as Elle Woods for Halloween and she really went for it, recreating the beloved law school character’s video application to Harvard Law. Wow.

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