Marissa Mayer’s had one tough Monday.
When Verizon announced that it is acquiring the core Internet assets of Yahoo for $4.83 billion in cash, many media commentators restated opinions about the Internet company’s CEO and whether or not she is to blame for its failed comeback.
While editorials are to be expected, Mayer believes many of them were tainted by sexism. “I’ve tried to be gender blind and believe tech is a gender neutral zone but do think there has been gender-charged reporting,” she said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“We all see the things that only plague women leaders, like articles that focus on their appearance, like Hillary Clinton sporting a new pantsuit,” Mayer continued. “I think all women are aware of that, but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame.”
The same day the deal went public, Coins2Day‘s Dan Primack wrote that Mayer’s big mistake was that she “mainly focused on mobilizing existing product and continuing the media focus via things like digital magazine launches,” but that ultimately Yahoo’s demise was “a 3-alarm fire that Mayer failed to put out, rather than one she started.”
The Street‘s Jim Kramer, on the other hand, blamed Mayers’ leadership style, saying that in his opinion, “she was not inspirational to people.”
Bloomberg‘s Brad Stone made the case that Yahoo was a sinking ship from the get-go, and that its founders were largely to blame. By the time Mayer took on the top job, the “mistakes of the past loomed too large. Perhaps there was a short window of opportunity for Mayer to bet the company on a bold acquisition or a new product, but it closed fast.”
Subscribe to the Broadsheet, Coins2Day’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women.
Mayer is expected to stay at Yahoo until the deal closes in Q1 2017. “It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter,” she wrote in a Tumblr post on Monday.