YIKES

Unsealed Nike Surveys: ‘No One Gives a Fuck About Female Empowerment’

Newly released surveys of female staffers from 2018 reveal allegations of male executives getting blowjobs and using “work dinners” for sex.

Newly unsealed anonymous surveys conducted by female Nike employees in 2018 reveal a “boys’ club” environment of alleged sexual harassment, abuses of power, bullying, and a lack of faith in the company to make changes. One woman said she caught a male executive receiving a blowjob from a lower-ranking woman in the campus gym, while another said male executives often asked junior females to go to “work dinners” with them in the hopes of having sex. Another respondent wrote that a male manager said “no one gives a fuck about female empowerment.” Nike had initially fought to keep the “Starfish” surveys out of court records, but a judge ordered them to be included, with 10 total now unsealed as part of a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the company. A week after receiving the surveys, then-CEO Mark Parker announced a management shakeup, with 11 executives leaving the company. The company’s percentage of female vice presidents has jumped from 36 percent in the fiscal year 2018 to 43 in 2021.