Women in technical roles reported 108 incidents of alleged sexual harassment and assault to the company between 2010 and 2016, court documents say. Three women alleged they were sexually assaulted or raped by male colleagues during that time. Newly unredacted sections of the plaintiffs’ court filings also show the frustration of some women, citing emails they wrote over the years to managers and executives. “Our organization is actually empowering a culture of exclusion,” one wrote.

The Redmond company made slight progress in its efforts to increase racial and gender diversity within its workforce in 2017, boosted in part by its acquisition last December of LinkedIn. The combined companies’ global employee base was 27.3 percent female at the end of September, compared with 25.8 percent at Microsoft alone last year.

Washington state’s recently passed parental-leave law could be a step toward enabling women with young children to remain in the workforce. The law, which takes effect in 2020, provides for 12 weeks of paid leave for each parent after a child is born, adopted or placed with a family. Though not as generous as Germany’s family-leave benefits, the new state law incorporates a key factor that the Germans also added relatively recently — incentives encouraging fathers to take family leave. Washington will offer the same paid leave to men as to women.