The reason people do this is because subconsciously some men have this weird hang-up about referring to their adult female counterparts as "women." They can't call us "girls" (although many of them do anyway) because a "girl" is usually a young person, so they fall back on "females," which is weird as hell.

Among the people we spoke to, three women described being groomed for promotions, and doing jobs above their title and pay grade, until men were suddenly brought in to replace them. Both male and female sources have described seeing unsolicited and unwelcome pictures of male genitalia from bosses or colleagues. One woman saw an e-mail thread about what it would be like to “penetrate her,” in which a colleague added that she’d be a good target to sleep with and not call again. Another said a colleague once informed her, apparently as a compliment, that she was on a list getting passed around by senior leaders detailing who they’d sleep with. Two former employees said they felt pressure to leave after making their concerns about gender discrimination known. One former male employee said that Riot’s “bro culture” is more pronounced behind closed doors, and hurts men too: One of Riot’s male senior leaders regularly grabbed his genitals, the source said, adding, “If he walked into a meeting with no women he’d just fart on someone’s face.”

“The ‘bro culture’ there is so real,” said one female source, who said she’d left the company due to sexism. “It’s agonizingly real. It’s like working at a giant fraternity.” Eighty percent of Riot employees are men, according to data Riot collected from employees’ driver’s licenses.

The meeting was called to introduce the company to a new set of more aggressive recruiting tactics and to encourage those attending to reach out to their networks to help recruiting with referrals. The summer interns had recently arrived at the studio and were in attendance at the meeting. A few of the female interns were sitting close to myself and one of my female direct reports. The presenter flipped through a few slides discussing recruiting and hiring at Riot… and then the final slide popped up on the screen in all caps. “Remember, NO DOESN’T REALLY MEAN NO” The presenter repeated the statement on the screen and let it drop like a punchline. The female college students sitting near me either looked around uncomfortably or stared into their laps unsure where to look. Awkward laughter from the room. I sat frozen, completely in shock. My direct report looked over at me, her expression one of disbelief.

Riot had co-opted a well known anti-rape slogan used for over 20 years “No means No” and turned the negative version of it into their new recruiting slogan. The version of it that has been used when refuting accusations of rape by a woman. This wasn’t an accident. They thought it was funny.

The next day, I crafted as diplomatic an email to Brandon as I could muster. I wrote that I doubt he meant it that way, but that people took the “no doesn’t necessarily mean no” as a rape joke, and how it really became a problem once Nancy baked it into the material. I went on to say that I knew we didn’t want to convey that message, and was happy to talk about it if he wanted.

I will never forget changing planes in San Francisco the following Monday. I pulled out my phone to check email, and found replies to the email I sent Brandon, but not only him. My original email had apparently become a thread with some folks in leadership. I recall it mentioning that hyper-sensitive people who didn’t understand intent were a problem we needed to address at Riot. I closed that email thread, and immediately below it there was a meeting invite titled “Riot Voice and Sense of Humor” set for when everyone returned from the company trip. The invite included the co-founders Marc (my boss) and Brandon, the head of Communications, the head of Legal, and myself.
The Meetings

The meeting began with me being asked to tell everyone what I think happened. I said something like, “the day began, the AMA happened, Brandon said the ‘no doesn’t necessarily mean no’ thing, we had the rest of the day, Nancy put that in the deck, and we all went to Happy Hour.”

At some point I think I referred to the slogan as a rape joke. Brandon pulled up a picture of a t-shirt that had an iceberg floating in water on it with the words “just the tip”, and said he had that t-shirt, and what did I think of it. I said I didn’t think it was appropriate. This led to a bit of back and forth between Marc, Brandon, and I, followed by Brandon talking for several minutes. I think Brandon felt misunderstood and misinterpreted, and that my email implied that I thought he condoned rape. After he had talked for several minutes, Marc said, “So what do you think about what he said?” I replied, “I think he thinks these sorts of things are OK and I don’t.”

That led to more of Brandon talking about not supporting rape, and also about our culture and having a sense of humor. After he had talked for a good long while, Marc again asked what I thought about what Brandon had said. I answered that as a white male I thought they had gotten all the insight they could get from me, and if they wanted more, they should ask the women who were there. I recall that not going over well.

Brandon again spoke for a long while, and Marc again asked what I thought. At this point, a pattern was emerging. Brandon would speak, Marc would ask what I thought, and I would respond in disagreement, and the pattern would repeat. I said, “Well, we’ve heard a lot from me, but we have the head of Communications and the head of Legal here. I think it would be interesting to hear their thoughts on this.”