Google Chairman called out for interrupting woman CTO during discussion

Most international companies are now calling out gender bias and are working towards achieving a more gender-balanced workplace. However, even though it’s not underlined, it sadly still continues to affect the behavior and attitudes of people. We saw this recently, when the Google chairman interrupted a woman senior officer during a panel discussion  at South by Southwest, the tech and culture love-fest in Austin, Texas.

But unlike how it usually works, this time Chairman Eric Schmidt, was called out by another woman employee Judith Williams, Google’s diversity manager. Soon after Schmidt interrupted  Megan Smith, the US chief technology officer of the company, Williams asked:  “Given that unconscious bias research tells us that women are interrupted a lot more than men, I'm wondering if you are aware that you have interrupted Megan many more times,” reported Slate.com.

The panel was discussing the creation of more innovation in technology, which led to a discussion about involving more women and minorities to improve the diversity of perspectives, which would eventually help innovation. This particular occasion being chosen for calling out a senior official, has led to a huge controversy.

Megan Smith
Picture By:Forbes

Some feel that in panel discussions such as these, people often interrupt each other; but Joelle Emerson, co-founder of Paradigm, a strategy firm that helps companies increase diversity and inclusiveness, told Huffington Post: “Google has a very open conversation on unconscious bias… What was an aberration is that someone spoke about it.” She added that Diversity trainings aren’t effective alone and one needs to change the processes.”

This has lead to a debate about how women are more interrupted than men in meetings and how if they don’t speak up, are considered as weak. This incident alone may not be a huge topic of dispute but it has definitely started a conversation around a very important subject.

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