81–90 of 494 posts
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The social and bioligical pressure*. I think we should strive to have equal maternity/paternity leave, but let’s not deny the origins of the current reality.
Why would fathers have biological pressure to spend less time with their children? I'd take five years paternity leave if I could get it.
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What do you want people to do when they are job searching while pregnant? Are you just wishing you'd been told on her first day on the job?
Let me answer this with a counter-question. If you're pregnant and somehow hiding it really well, do you think it makes sense for you to job-hunting six weeks before you're due to give birth?
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You'd have to make it mandatory leave. The social pressure is still tilted towards women as care givers and men as providers so more men will end up not using the leave. If it becomes mandatory then it's just a baked in rising to every employee, _and_ will probably do better for society to have both parents get time with their children. I believe some European states solve this by having the state cover ~60% of your…
You'd have to make it mandatory leave. How do you accomplish that without violating the right to privacy? If a man keeps coming into work and his partner is pregnant, nobody has to know.
The tax forms might be a key: Require everyone to be honest about their underage children, whether or not they are dependents, and give the option to claim fewer dependents on their tax forms.
Yet another option is to handle it much like FMLA. The employer doesn't get the right to know exactly what is going on and the doctor can use medical codes instead of plain English. My ex's psychiatrist did this when he needed time off for a major mental illness (he later went on disability for said illness). The employer doesn't have to know, but he'll need similar notice.
Personally experienced it. Wife worked at Google, had always positive performance reviews. Come pregnancy time she informed her manager, 3 days later they put her on a performance improvement plan. It didn't take long for them to realize they were making a big mistake, risking an expensive lawsuit so they let it go and let her have her paid 12 month leave. After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take seve…
My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.
This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…
"So while I'd like to force the startup to make the decision without considering this factor, is that always reasonable?" I believe it is. As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup.
Maybe we could take this out of the hands of the startup and have society subsidize it?
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FUCK yes. Kids cost money. Jobs are how you get money. And I say this as someone who hired a woman who then told us she would give birth in two months, and we were fine.
Please excuse me if I'm being too flippant, but I'm trying to make a point here: Another way of making quick money is by robbing a bank. Just making the point here that your logic is lacking, not that pregnant women are bank robbbers.
The logic of: "Babies are expensive, therefor I cannot stay unemployed for 6 months before I find a job" seems completely sound and reasonable to me. Where is that logic lacking? What practical alternative would you propose?
This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…
"So while I'd like to force the startup to make the decision without considering this factor, is that always reasonable?" I believe it is. As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup.
Err no. It wasn't long ago that a family could survive well on a single income with the mother at home, cars paid, schooling sorted and food on the table. Not even remotely feasible on a single income now, unless you're talking executive pay.
Society has by and large chosen to abandon the family when it comes to supporting reproduction. Hell, we're told that we aren't reproducing at rates enough to replace us and that the only solution is bringing in cheap immigrants (got to keep those wages down) rather than making having more kids more accessible to the people already here.
Society has chosen rabid capitalism at virtually every cost possible.
This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…
Just because women are bearing the physical burden of the pregnancy, it doesn't mean it's solely their burden. We're making the choice that it should be their burden. We could just as easily provide subsidies and insurance to companies to cover family leave. If we value childbirth as a society, then we should put our money where our mouth is and actually pay for it somehow.
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My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.
Isn't that illegal?
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Let me answer this with a counter-question. If you're pregnant and somehow hiding it really well, do you think it makes sense for you to job-hunting six weeks before you're due to give birth?
Literally the only reason to tell a prospective employer about your pregnancy status is to enable them to unlawfully discriminate against you based on that status.
edit: Yes, downvotes will change my mind. You're all doing a wonderful job and are definitely morally superior to me and I'm unworthy of your keystrokes.