Summary: Arthur K. Watson (son of Thomas Sr.) showed chauvinistic and misogynistic behaviour bordering on the criminal; as a US diplomat he was never held accountable for his actions and efforts were made (going all the way up to the US President) to cover everything up
THE BIG technology companies have all pretended to value feminism, diversity (racial, gender/identity, age group, linguistics, nationality and so on) among all sorts of altruism, not to mention greenwashing and openwashing.
Basically, when one works for the PR/marketing department of a multi-billion-dollar monster one's sole goal is to embellish things, improve the image, whiten the brand (is it OK to say "whiten"?) and basically lie every time there's a major gaffe that tarnishes the firm's name (or embarrasses prominent people). IBM is no exception and IBM has spent many decades claiming to champion women's equality, the cause of feminism, equal pay and so on.
"Bear this in mind next time IBM arrogantly lectures us all (from its high horse) on women's rights."One thing that's almost impossible to find any record of (in 2020) is this incident which was so noteworthy that even the US President (at the time) talked about it.
Here's the audio which contains declassified stuff and also some context for the recording (Kissinger, Nixon etc.) followed by comparisons to Trump's "grab her by the pussy" remark. It's entitled "The head of IBM and the Stewardess Incident" and we've cut the critical parts of it, including the old and barely comprehensible chats/ramblings of Richard Nixon (homophobic by today's standards).
