Activison Blizzard Employees Walk Out in Protest Over Sexism, Harassment

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Activison Blizzard Employees Walk Out In Protest Over Sexism, Harassment:

Activision Blizzard employees will stop work on Wednesday in protest of an "abhorrent and insulting" response from company leadership to a lawsuit that exposed serious allegations of sexism and harassment at the game publisher.

The lawsuit, filed July 22 by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), described a company culture that allowed for gender-based discrimination and "constant sexual harassment." A two-year investigation into the company alleged that women were held back from promotions for various reasons, including the possibility that they may eventually take maternity leave, and that female employees were subject to "derogatory comments about rape" and other demeaning behaviors.

An official response from Activision Blizzard said the lawsuit "includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard's past."

More than 2,600 current and former Activision Blizzard employees have since signed an open letter in support of the DFEH lawsuit. (Sources told Polygon that includes at least 1,600 current employees and 400 former employees, by the last available count.) In it, the employees said they don't trust leadership to "hold abusers accountable for their actions," and that the official statements "damaged our ongoing quest for equality inside and outside of our industry." Now, employees will walk out of work - both virtually and at the Blizzard campus in Irvine, California - to protest executive response.

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