Ellen Pao says gender discrimination issues won't ‘go away’ after trial

Ellen Pao, the woman who sued the powerful venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for sex discrimination and lost, said Monday that more work needs to be done to address gender discrimination.  

“You need to work through these issues,” Pao told The Wall Street Journal in an article published Monday, “because they are here and they’re not going to go away.”

In her first interviews since a 12-person jury rejected four counts of gender discrimination against Kleiner Perkins on March 26, Pao also told broadcast journalist Katie Couric that while the scrutiny heaped upon her during the trial was difficult, she had been buoyed by the messages of support she had received from people all over the world.

“You start out, and you’re just one person,” Pao told Couric in an interview released online Monday on Yahoo.com. “It’s become something that’s much beyond me.”

When Couric asked how she would respond to those who say that her case was “the right issue at the right time,” but that she was “the wrong example” of gender discrimination, Pao shrugged it off.

“It’s happening to everyone, and there is no right example or wrong example,” Pao told Couric.

“I’ve told my story to highlight what the problem is, and if people don’t like it, that’s fine,” she added. “Go find somebody else, but this is my story, and this is something that happens to everybody and they should think about the message and what’s happening and not try to focus on me. It’s not about me.”

Pao, who is now interim CEO at the user-generated news site Reddit, told the Wall Street Journal that women were too often being asked to embody stereotypically masculine and feminine traits in order to succeed at work, creating impossible-to-meet double standards.

“You have this needle that you have to thread, and sometimes it feels like there’s no hole in the needle,” Pao said. “From what I’ve heard from women, they do feel like there’s no way to win. They can’t be aggressive and get this opportunity without being treated like they’ve done something wrong.”

When Couric asked Pao what kinds of changes she’d like to see made with respect to women in the workplace, Pao said she’d like to see companies invest in more diverse employees, including women and minorities. “I’d love to see a day where there are 50 percent women in these really powerful institutions that have a huge impact on what technology and what services are brought to the world,” Pao said. “If we can do that, I’ll be very happy.”