European women working in the
technology field are very familiar with the concerns expressed by their counterparts in the United States — too few girls and young women studying science and technology in school, gender bias and sexual harassment intheworkplace.
But, they say, the problems play out in different ways.“We don’t have a frat-boy culture, we have more of an old-boys culture,” said Anne-Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes, a British nonprofit aimed at encouraging girls to pursue science, engineering, math and technology. Class differences, she said, play a bigger role in making outsiders feel alienated in the United Kingdom than in the United States, but “the result is the same.”Over the past year or so in the United States, one accusation of sexual harassment and gender bias in one high-profile company has barely died down before another pops up. Susan Fowler, an Uber employee, wrote a blog post in February about harassment and retaliation that landed like dynamite; after investigations and more revelations, Uber’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, left the company.
