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Eight more women accuse PlayStation of sexism

More women have come forward with stories alleging a sexist environment at PlayStation.

Donovan Erskine

March 10, 2022 11:30 AM

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Last year, PlayStation found itself as the subject of a gender discrimination lawsuit when former IT analyst Emma Majo stated that she was terminated after filing complaints of mistreatment from her superiors. Now, eight more past and present female employees at the company have added to that proposed lawsuit with stories of their own.

It was first reported by Axios that a new case filing had been made in Emma Majo’s proposed class-action lawsuit against PlayStation. Now, eight different women are recounting their own experiences with sexism at the video game giant. These stories come from a few different PlayStation offices in the United States and include inappropriate comments and unwanted advances.

Kara Johnson is a former program manager at PlayStation who spoke to the company’s culture in the new filing, saying that she knew of 10 women that left her Rancho Bernardo office before she did herself in January 2021. “I believe Sony is not equipped to appropriately handle toxic environments,” she said.

Longtime employee Marie Harrington also shared her negative experience with PlayStation. She said that women were rarely considered for promotions at the company, citing a particular session where there were four women up for a promotion in contrast to seventy men. She went on to say that the female employees’ family lives were brought up as a talking point, but the same wasn’t said for male employees.

Those are just a couple of anecdotes found in the Axios report. Following Majo’s filing back in November, Sony called for the courts to throw out her lawsuit, stating that it lacked specific facts. Majo’s filing beats the deadline that was set by the court for her to respond to Sony’s request. Now, we await a potential hearing to figure out what the next steps in the legal proceeding will be.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_