Ellen Pao, right, leaves the Civic Center Courthouse along with her attorney, Therese Lawless, left, in this Feb. 24, 2015, file photo, during a lunch break in her trial in San Francisco. Plaintiff Pao testified Monday, March 9, 2015, that female employees were treated disrespectfully at the firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and some were not even invited, when the company held a series of events. Pao also told the jury at the civil trial that she complained to management about the atmosphere at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers after learning a female colleague had complained about alleged sexual harassment. The investigator hired by the firm to investigate Pao’s complaint concluded there was no gender discrimination at the firm. AP
SAN FRANCISCO, United States — The woman behind a gender bias lawsuit against a major Silicon Valley venture capital firm says she felt uncomfortable about a conversation men were having about pornography aboard a private plane.
Plaintiff Ellen Pao testified Monday in her lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that she didn’t know how to stop the conversation without seeming like a “wet blanket.”
The men were not Kleiner employees, but Pao’s attorneys have said a senior Kleiner manager who was present did nothing to stop the conversation.
Her attorneys have portrayed the firm as an all-boys club where Pao was not promoted because she was a woman and then fired in 2012 after she complained.
Kleiner Perkins has denied wrongdoing and says Pao didn’t get along with her colleagues and performed poorly after she became a junior partner.
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