Uber engineer responds to sexism scandal: 'This is everyone's problem'

A sexism scandal has rocked Uber for the past two days after a former engineer published a lengthy blog post about her year working at Uber.

In her reflections, the former engineer, Susan Fowler, said she was sexually harassed by her manager, ignored by the company's human-resources department, and threatened by her manager for even reporting the allegations. Uber's CEO was swift to pledge an urgent investigation and reportedly issued a teary apology to his employees.

Now a female engineer still working at the company has spoken out as well — not to negate Fowler's claims but to describe the scope of the issue.

"I think this is disgusting and appalling and horrifying and yet I am not surprised at all," Aimee Lucido wrote in a personal blog. "In fact, I'm most surprised at how surprised everyone else seems to be."

Lucido said a large part of her didn't want to go into work, knowing Fowler's claims were just the tip of the iceberg. Yet, her post went on to say it was not just Uber that needed work.

"This is everyone's problem," she said.

Lucido pointed to a survey called "Elephant in the Valley" that found that 60% of women in Silicon Valley reported unwanted sexual advances, with 65% of those women saying the advances came from a superior.

"If people only take from this the fact that Uber's HR department needs work, and the managers are assholes, and Uber needs to release its diversity statistics, then we are missing the point," Lucido said.

Instead, Lucido asks people to continue to spread Fowler's story and listen to their colleagues. If they see something, she said, they should say something.

"Without a doubt, this is a bad situation, and Uber has a lot to clean up," Lucido said. "But this was a problem last week, and no matter how much we shouted about it, no one was listening. As you’re sitting there, reading this post, thanking your lucky stars that your company isn't like this, remember that the contents of Susan's post were surprising specifically because Uber employees didn't think that it was a problem."