There have been a handful of major publishers in the recent months and years that have found themselves at the centre of discrimination and harassment lawsuits (Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Riot). And now, Sony Interactive Entertainment has made their way onto that list with a lawsuit of their own.
According to details of the lawsuit, former security analyst, Emma Majo has alleged a violation of equal pay, stating that Sony “discriminates against female employees” in compensation and promotion, and “subjects them to a work culture predominated by men.”
The former security analyst claims that she was passed over for promotions and saw termination after submitting a gender bias complaint. As such, she is now seeking to establish a class action suit to represent other women who also might have been affected by PlayStation’s alleged gender discrimination.
Interestingly enough, this comes a few days after PlayStation’s boss, Jim Ryan, emailed his employees with words condemning Activision Blizzard’s response to reports of Bobby Kotick’s alleged abusive behavior during his time at the company.
Majo’s experience as a female employee at Sony alleges that she was repeatedly denied answers about how to get promotions. She claims that she was then demoted because of her queries about such. Furthermore, Majo also claims that she overheard managers making gender-biased comments about female workers, implying that women are “less professional” and more “emotional” than that of male employees.
The suit claims that Majo submitted a statement to Sony that addressed these alleged gender biases. Shortly after, Majo was promptly dismissed due to the closure of a department that she didn’t belong to. However, Majo argues that the reason she was wrongfully terminated was “because she is female and because she spoke up about discrimination against females.”
Sony has not yet commented on the allegations stipulated above.
