Ah, the public gaffe. We’ve seen it happen so many times in history, and such instances have only grown with the proliferation of social media and the dangerously intoxicating capability we have to publicly voice our opinions whenever they might arise, whatever they are. The tendency to broadcast unfiltered thoughts is a more pervasive problem than it’s ever been, and it’s something that seemingly everyone is susceptible to, from the peeved middle-schooler to business moguls like Donald Trump. Here’s a handy list of 13 people fired because of tweets.
At a certain level, we get it. I mean, everyone is susceptible to impulsive indignation and rash judgments, and it only follows that since the means are available to voice these grievances, people will leverage them. But people are accountable for the things they say regardless of where they say it, which is something that a lot of folks may forget when they log into Twitter to unleash a late-night mega rant.
Now there are certain people from whom the occasional flip remark is to be expected – namely those still within the realm of adolescence. But of all the people who shouldn’t be saying regrettable and impulsive things in a public space, Satya Nadella just about tops the list. Here’s why:
- He is CEO of Microsoft, a global corporation whose reputation he’s largely accountable for.
- He only recently got the job, having been appointed in February 2014.
- His particular position – not to mention the relative newness of it – makes him particularly susceptible to public scrutiny.
Any one of these reasons should have given him pause before he made a very unfortunate comment at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing on Thursday, Oct. 9. The comment came when Nadella was talking about working toward raises. Here’s what he said, according to The New York Times: “It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. That’s good karma. It will come back. That’s the kind of person that I want to trust, that I want to give more responsibility to.”
What is wrong with that?
A precursory glance at that remark might not send up any red flags. But one must consider Nadella’s audience and the historical context out of which it arises to understand how insensitive it was. The audience Nadella was addressing was comprised of women who work in computing, a field historically dominated by men. Basically, how Nadella’s comment comes across is telling a room full of women to just hope for the best when it comes to working toward raises.
Uhhh … what world of delusion does Nadella live in, exactly? Because the real world is one in which women still face enormous inequality when it comes to salaries. According to research conducted by Harvard’s Claudia Goldin, the average female financial specialist only makes 66 percent as much as her male counterpart. Female dentists make less than three-quarters as much as male dentists. And again, these are people who are doing the exact same work.
So why does the discrepancy exist? Because as much as Nadella might like to believe it, there’s more engrained sexism than karma in the business sphere. Fortunately, Nadella appears to realize how regrettable his comment was, and issued the following tweet: “Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias.”
It remains to be seen whether Nadella will expand on this and offer a full apology, or if he’ll simply wait for karma to sort the whole thing out.
