Why Are Two Former Female Employees Suing Twitter?

Two US nationals, Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal, who lost their jobs at Twitter have now sued the company, claiming that their dismissal was part of the bigger scheme of things considering the discriminatory layoffs especially targeted female employees.

In what could be termed as a rugged mass layoff, half the working force at Twitter was laid off after Elon Musk took over the microblogging company. After Musk purchased the social media platform for a whopping $44 billion, he informed the workforce that almost half of them would no longer have to hold their jobs but would be given severance of three months as they leave. In a lot of instances of photos posted post the layoffs, it was noticed that the employee strength included very few women leading to claims that the women may have been more affected in the process than men. On Friday, it was reported that former female employees supported these claims by suing the company and filing a case at a US court concerning the discrimination they faced in the process of getting fired.

Suggested reading: Why Do Women Face The Brunt Of Any Crisis At Home Or Workplace?

Former Female Employees Sue Twitter

An extensive report revealed that Willow Wren Turkal and Carolina Bernal Strifling, United States nationals, who worked as employees at Twitter and were fired after Musk took over the company filed a suit in Court with claims of discrimination. The former employees claim that the rugged layoffs affected women disproportionately. The lawsuit filed in a San Francisco Court details how the firing process targeted female employees to a huge extent, alleging that fifteen-seven per cent of the women workforce was laid off as compared to less than half of the male employees.

"Layoffs targeted women employees who were, to a large extent, caregivers for their children and family"

Turkal and Strifling alleged that Twitter designed their firing process in a certain way that women bore the brunt of it even though the company had hired more male employees before the layoffs. The layoffs, which harmed women disproportionality, picked out employees who were caregivers of their families and, according to the company, could not abide by the demands of the workplace which, ironically, the women stated, they had been managing excellently for years now. The duo expressed that women employees were as involved as name employees at Twitter, and having children or being caregivers for their families is not the reason they should have been aid off.

"The mass layoffs at the company impacted female employees to a greater extent that the male employees. Moreover, the new head of Twitter Elon Musk has often, very publicly, made several discriminatory remarks around women, which confirms confirming that the terminations led to severe impact n the careers of women and these were a solid result of gender discrimination,” reads a part of the lawsuit.

It’s known that Musk went forward with the layoffs all through November as well after he fired several engineers who criticised him.