Bloomberg for years has battled women’s allegations of profane, sexist comments creating a hostile workplace
As Mike Bloomberg celebrated his 48th birthday in 1990, a top aide at the company he founded presented him with a booklet of profane, sexist quotes she attributed to him.
A good salesperson is like a man who tries to pick up women at a bar by saying, “Do you want to f—? He gets turned down a lot — but he gets f—– a lot, too!” Bloomberg was quoted in the booklet as saying. Bloomberg also allegedly said that his company’s financial information computers “will do everything, including give you [oral sex]. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”
At the time, some Bloomberg staffers said, they laughed off the comments in the 32-page booklet, “The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg,” as a macho side of one of the nerdiest men on Wall Street.
But others viewed them more darkly, seeing them as blunt examples of what they considered to be a hostile environment, artifacts of a workplace employees said was saturated with degrading comments.
Several lawsuits have been filed over the years alleging that women were discriminated against at Bloomberg’s business-information company, including a case brought by a federal agency and one filed by a former employee, who blamed Bloomberg for creating a culture of sexual harassment and degradation. [Continue reading…]