As the chorus around the "Me Too" hashtag campaign grows louder, another prominent voice to speak up is Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Talking about the campaign, Melinda told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that she too has faced sexual harassment when she worked in the tech industry, The Economic Times reported.
"I too have had personal experience of sexual harassment, and I worked in the tech industry. Lot of what's coming out in the West and in the United States is from different industries, but one of them has been from the tech industry," she told the publication.
However, this is not the first time that Melinda, also considered one of the most powerful women in the world, has talked about sexism and gender discrimination, especially in the tech industry.
Speaking at a gathering in New York in September, she said she had experienced sexism in the Silicon Valley "from peers, professors, everyone. It wasn't as bad inside of Microsoft; I faced it a little bit inside the company but it was just industry-wide."
Uber came into the spotlight earlier this year after allegations of sexual harassment were made against its employees, apart from the toxic work culture at the organisation. There have also been reports, including ones on heads of tech companies against whom similar accusations have been made, as a report in The New Yorker points out.
"Obviously I'm outraged, but what I'm not is shocked," Melinda told the publication. "The only people who didn't know what was happening in Silicon Valley were the ones trying very hard not to see what was right in front of them. I don't think there's a woman who has worked in tech who hasn't experienced some form of bias or sexual harassment somewhere along the way—myself included."
The #MeToo campaign started in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal and has become a rallying point for a number of people to recount their experiences of sexual harassment and assault.