An easy way to tell if a tech company doesn’t give a s*** about women

Always check out the women’s room. I give that tip to every woman I know who is interviewing at a tech company. I’ve had a lot of s***** jobs and firmly believe you can tell a lot about how women’s needs are prioritized by what the women’s bathroom is like. Here is what I always look for:

1. Are there free tampons? Yes, I know not all women need them, but a hell of a lot of us do. Don’t tell me you can afford free beer for the office and not free tampons. Nope. In fact, the men’s bathroom should have em too so that they accommodate trans employees.

2. Is there toilet paper in every stall? You don’t know how many places I’ve worked at where there isn’t enough toilet paper and women have to share one measly roll by the end of the day, passing it under the stall if you forget it. Come on.

3. Are there enough stalls? If 20 women are sharing 1 stall, it’s not good. And yes, another situation I’ve really encountered.

4. Is the bathroom convenient? another WTF situation on the opposite level is places where the women’s room is hard to access. Like I worked on a tech team where there was NO WOMEN’S BATHROOM ON THE IT FLOOR. I had to go to an entirely different floor. And you needed a special key for it. And there were not enough keys so you had to “share” them. I almost peed my pants on multiple occasions.

5. Are things broken? one place I worked there were constantly things broken in the women’s bathroom. I asked around and men said it was not the case in their bathroom. In the year I worked there none of these things were ever fixed. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that sexism was rampant there.

6. Is there a lactation room that is genuinely for lactation? It needs to exist AND needs to be private and not accessible to bad people like Travis Kalanick, the ex-Uber CEO who used the lactation room for meditation.

There are not just signs women aren’t valued, but that workers in general aren’t valued or that custodial staff is chronically underpaid.

These days, there is no way I’m leaving an interview without checking out the bathroom first.

Anyone else have tech women’s bathroom horror stories? Noticed that tech companies that have ****** women’s rooms aren’t good places for women to work?