Co-founder and former vice president of marketing of the popular ?app Tinder Whitney Wolfe is ?suing the company for sexual harassment and sex ?discrimination.
Allegedly, after a relationship between her and Chief Marketing Officer Justin Mateen soured, she started receiving inappropriate messages and at times was even called a “whore” and a “slut” in front of the app’s CEO.
What is perhaps the most saddening allegation is that Mateen and Tinder CEO Sean Rad stripped her of her co-founder title after her break-up with ?Mateen, claiming “Facebook and Snapchat don’t have girl founders, it just makes it look like Tinder was some ?accident.”
When Wolfe offered her resignation, she was ?subsequently fired.
If this is all true, the Tinder app has become even more ?ridiculous in my mind.
It is hell-bent on promoting the sexuality of images and bodies, foregoing connections in favor of compliments.
Tinder does not have a lot of ground to stand on. To say it is not a serious company because a girl ?co-founded it is ridiculous.
Tinder isn’t a ?serious company because its product seems like the end ?result of some drunk joke.
Social media and other online applications are part of a still-emerging ?internet marketplace.
To weigh this down with sexism is, at the least, ?idiotic; at the most, it’s ?dangerous.
Not only that, but to blame the issue on Wolfe being a woman says more about their business than I think Mateen and Rad ?wanted.
To punish a woman for participating in and ?breaking off an inter-office relationship is a perfect ?example of the types of ?sexist bullying that go on in the modern workplace.
Even when she ?attempted to handle the ?situation professionally by turning in her resignation, she was scorned and fired outright.
This controlling behavior must stop.
To continue to ?exploit the idea that women ?cannot be taken seriously and are unable to function in business is to continue a system of oppression that ?affords little in the way of progress.
Wolfe has opened up a lawsuit against ?Tinder. Whether it will go ?anywhere remains to be seen.
But I hope it sheds light on the misogynistic and sexist behavior that ?persists, even now, in young companies with the ability to either change or stagnate the way the market and business world works.
But it is Tinder, so is ?anyone really surprised?
