The 3 Things That Make Organizations More Prone to Sexual Harassment
In the first earnings call after the head of Amazon Studios, Roy Price, resigned amid sexual-harassment allegations, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos said nothing about Price’s departure. Bezos’ silence on the matter continued a pattern of inaction by the company.
Allegations were first made against Price in July of 2015. After an investigation, the only punishment meted out, according to a New York Times account attributed to an Amazon employee briefed on the matter, was that Price was told to watch his drinking at work functions. Despite an investigation and despite The Hollywood Reporter’s inquiry about the incident last spring, nothing more was done until recent news articles created a PR problem for the company. (Amazon declined to speak on the record.) Amazon then, finally, did make a change: In the end, Price was put on leave last month and resigned a few days later. The delay in meaningful discipline for Price led some current and former employees to wonder if that leniency was in some way connected to the company’s lack of women in senior leadership positions—according to the tech-news site Recode, Amazon has just one woman among its 18 top executives.
They weren’t wrong. Amazon to be particularly prone to sexual harassment and abuse: male dominated, super hierarchical, and forgiving when it comes to bad behavior.
