First it was Ubisoft, later Activision Blizzard and It seems that now it is the Sony division responsible for PlayStation that is facing a difficult situation for, supposedly, having allowed discriminatory behavior with the women who make up its staff. We are not talking about a toxic culture like that of the two companies mentioned above, but we are talking about at least one case in which a woman, the current complainant, would have seen both her salary and her possibilities for professional development penalized because of her gender.
As we can read in Axios, the applicant is former employee Emma Majo, a security analyst who has worked for PlayStation between 2015 and 2021, although her plans are not the only plaintiff. Quite the contrary, this could just be the start of a class action lawsuit, as Majo has asked more women, employees and former employees, to join the process, as he claims that gender discrimination is a widespread problem in the company.
“Sony tolerates and cultivates a work environment that discriminates against female employees”.
In this case, unlike those mentioned above, discrimination seems to focus on the professional conditions of women on PlayStation, with multiple unjustified denials of job promotion, as well as wage inequality between men and women, with worse wages for them in positions with similar functions and responsibilities than their male colleagues.
Waiting for both adherence to the lawsuit, and the judicial process of it, at least It is striking that the complaint occurs at this time, just a few days after Jim Ryan, the head of PlayStation, sent a message to all his employees criticizing everything that happened at Activision Blizzard. A message from which his total disapproval of what happened under the supervision of Bobby Kotick was deduced.
In said message, the PlayStation manager claimed to be disheartened and astonished, in addition to stating that he had asked for explanations about how the company intended to act in this regard. Some statements that make perfect sense, but now, in the face of the shadow that in his own house he would also be discriminating against women, they are quite lackluster. Now we will have to wait to see how the trial unfolds and what conclusions are drawn, because perhaps, after all, PlayStation will also have to explain and take action.
Be that as it may, it is becoming increasingly clear that the video game industry has a problem, and a very serious problem, with women. Whether in cases where discrimination translates into worse wages and job prospects, as supposedly occurs at PlayStation, or atrocities such as those we have been able to read in the case of Activision Blizzard, it is becoming more evident every day that the entire sector needs an urgent review of its policies, and concrete plans to end a situation that does nothing more than distort, more and more, a sector as important as gaming.
