I'm really surprised by the number of comments here that support this kind of discrimination. I thought we were better than this.
Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
121–130 of 494 posts
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#122It's not just women that experience discrimination. When my wife was pregnant and I let our CEO and co-founder know (small company, Not long after letting them know about the pregnancy/birth, I found a suspicious/hidden hiring post from the CEO for a position that mirrored mine although we were "not hiring".
Within the next month or two I had a few suspicious interactions with the cofounder over things he'd like to see "improved" within my work. Which was complete bullshit. The guy didn't believe in version control, managed tasks in a Google Doc and didn't like how I used branches for feature development (why don't you just commit to master?). Trust me when I say his list of issues were bullshit (not worth going into all of them, though they may be funny as hell to hear). His improvements/concerns carried no weight and were obviously a front for something else.
The CEO became more and more aggressive with me over things that were outside of my job/position/role. He would go off the handle over them and eventually I called him out on it. He lost his shit and basically "fired" me. I won't go into details regarding what happened next, but lets just say I made out very well :)
Moral of the story, it's not just women that get discriminated against. If you're a father to be, be careful who you let know and how you handle it. Keep a record of everything including the timeline of events, it can come in handy ;)
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#123One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. If I gave you the choice of two employees, one of whom would take 12 weeks of paid leave and one who would take 2 weeks of paid leave, which would you choose? If you offered both sexes 12 weeks of paid leave, you wouldn't have to make this decision.
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…
Even better, make it mandatory for everyone. Whether they are having children or not. That would really level the playing field.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
Don’t forget feminism’s role in this as well. The traditional working father/stay at home mother arrangement has been deemed oppressive and degrading to women.
Consider what happens if you are in an abusive relationship, or a relationship that turns abusive, and your sole employable skills are ten years of home-making.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
Don’t forget feminism’s role in this as well. The traditional working father/stay at home mother arrangement has been deemed oppressive and degrading to women.
The missing ingredient from your description is: freedom.
It is not degrading for a parent to choose to prioritize family matters over income.
It is degrading for society to tell a person what their personal priorities will be based on a chromosome.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and where do you imagine the money comes from?
If you're going to make a financial argument (as opposed to the moral one), you should take a look at how we fund entitlements in this country. You want population growth. The financial disincentive for having kids is a real problem.
If you want to make an economic argument, we don't want exponential population growth, unless you are looking forward to an unmitigated ecological disaster.
You want a steady population level, whether via births, or immigration, or both.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, that sounds like straight up fraud to me. Do companies in America get financial support from the government for employees on pregnancy leave?
My team has hired more than one person that immediately went on leave. We literally paid them for months before they started. We did this knowingly, and I cite this with other candidates as a concrete example of how well we treat our employees. Guess what, in our industry the people that are planning to have kids are also very likely to be senior and experienced. They're hard to recruit. Consider leave as part of the…
>We did this knowingly
Great, but the parent poster is hiding(again, rightfully so) their planned leave from their future employer.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and where do you imagine the money comes from?
If you're going to make a financial argument (as opposed to the moral one), you should take a look at how we fund entitlements in this country. You want population growth. The financial disincentive for having kids is a real problem.
If we actually take long-term economics in mind (broadly, the opportunity-cost and overall net effect style of economics, not the myopic just-count-real-dollars one), then we do NOT want population growth.
We don't want an aging population that has to be supported by a shrinking working-age population, but we don't want to be trapped in a growth bubble either. We want sustainable population with ever increasing quality of life due to scientific and technological advancement.
Population growth might be truly desired if we get to colonizing other planets…
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? 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.
A company doesn't just exist for the benefit of its shareholders. It exists for the benefit of society and its employees. And quite crying about down-votes.
Well... not really. In the sense that shareholders can sue a corporation they own if the management is not acting in their best interest while society cannot, a corporations main purpose is to provide profit to shareholders
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? 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.
You are making my argument for me. Thank you.