In September, 21 former and current employees of The Blue Origin company founded by Jeff Bezos accused the company of gender discrimination, and now SpaceX, another famous company in the commercial space field, has been accused of sexual harassment and sexism.
According to foreign media reports on December 14, several women who have interned and worked at SpaceX said that they had been sexually harassed by male interns and male employees, telling the story of the failure of the company's human resources office in dealing with male employees, and some of them were even never punished.
Former SpaceX employees accused the division of sexual harassment, and several women spoke up
Ashley Kosak, a former SpaceX engineer, accused her of being sexually harassed by a male intern in the intern's dormitory in 2017 when she was an intern at the division. In 2018, she was "up and down" by a male employee at a company event. On both occasions, she reported the situation to the manager and the human resources department separately, but never responded.
↑SpaceX has become the leading company in the commercial space field. The picture shows that on November 10, local time, four astronauts will carry the Dragon spacecraft "Endurance" and "Falcon 9" rockets to the International Space Station. Image according to Visual China
On one occasion, she used an internal anonymous method to report, but then she was contacted by an hr resources employee asking about the harassment she had reported, saying that the anonymous report was invalid. She eventually resigned last month and recently revealed what happened in her former employer.
After Kosak stepped forward, several women revealed similar encounters. One of the anonymous women said she had been sexually harassed like Kosak when she lived in a dormitory provided by SpaceX because it was difficult to find a house near the launch site. These dormitories are usually mixed and sometimes require shared bathrooms.
The woman said that in 2012, after she took a shower from the dormitory bathroom and returned to her room, she encountered verbal and verbal harassment by a male employee. After hr investigated the incident, she was told that the company would draw up a new accommodation policy and that the restroom would only be shared among employees of the same gender. At that time, the employee involved was still working for the division.
Female interns were forced into the bedroom by male employees
Similar cases are not uncommon. One of the women said she had worked in the Division for five years after her internship, during which time she had seen and heard of sexual harassment and misconduct within the Division. She lived with other women during her internship from 2016 to 2017, and "half of them have stories of situations that make them very uncomfortable," but have to speak anonymously because of confidentiality.
"If SpaceX's strategy is to hire all these people and then not provide the resources to create an equal work environment, they are doomed to fail." Kosak said. As of her resignation on Nov. 22, the male employee who sexually harassed her in 2018 is still working at SpaceX.
↑SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwen Shortwell
SpaceX did not respond to the allegations. Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said in an email to employees on the 11th that the company will conduct an internal and independent review of the human resources department to investigate all allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination, and will "take prompt and appropriate action" once it is found to violate its policies.
The issue of gender inequality in the space industry, "Blue Origin" has also been accused
In recent years, SpaceX has become a leading player in commercial space, with the company paying attention to highlighting the work of female engineers in live launches or media coverage.
But across the space industry, men still far outnumber women, at a ratio of about 8:1. Many women have reported sexual harassment and sexism at work. Female interns who want to find full-time jobs are among the most vulnerable to sexual harassment and sexism. Industry employees reported that the human resources departments of companies, including SpaceX, were always not active in dealing with or firing employees under investigation.
In addition to SpaceX, the company Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos in September, has a total of 21 former and current employees who say that the company has serious gender discrimination and retaliates against employees who speak out about safety issues. Blue Origin has denied the allegations.
Former SpaceX interns have also reportedly accused the division of retaliation. Julia Fallanga interned at SpaceX from 2015 to 2017. During this time, she was a student at Purdue University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She alleged in 2020 that she was retaliated against after reporting her manager's actions that made her uncomfortable. Julia and SpaceX struck a settlement earlier this year.
Red Star News reporter Lin Rong
Edited by Zhang Xun
(Download Red Star News, there are prizes for the newspaper!) ）