Thought experiment: a scrappy startup is struggling to stay profitable, they literally (and not figuratively) can't afford their developers leaving for extended amounts of time and they are very upfront about this in interviews. Are they legally allowed to discriminate against candidates that are pregnant or expressed a desire to have children in the near future since it has the potential to kill their business if th…
Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
161–170 of 494 posts
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#162It'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 s…
> 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.
I have heard so many stories along these same lines, I think it's just accepted as normal in the industry.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…
> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…
On a tangential matter, I think many people would agree that society should consider financial help for children in poverty. But who should pay? The potentially poorer neighborhoods where they reside? The businesses in the area? Or the national government?
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#164Being anti discrimination started with not discriminating people for things they can't control. Race, gender, etc. Now we're moving into territory of not discriminating against optional things people choose (having children). This is a very significant change, IMO. I wonder how far it can be taken. I think there's a fair argument that since pregnancy only affects women then it counts as gender discrimination. However…
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#165Pregnancy, having kids, both for dads and moms, having a life, being older, experienced, all things that will count against you. Starting your business sometimes seems like the only way to get things right for you.
This is so true, at least in the tech industry and startup world.
The bottom line is that if you're a parent, parent-to-be, or older, the apparent assumption is that you have a life outside of work, and thus you will likely not make work your life, so you will be working less than a childless early 20-something, and you'll probably actually use the health insurance, take vacation time, and maybe work reasonable hours. This, I suspect, is a big component of age discrimination as well.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#166Earlier 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.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#167I'm really surprised by the number of comments here that support this kind of discrimination. I thought we were better than this.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're actually interested in theories that have been discussed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_investment
"This article is about parental care in animals. For human parenting, see parenting."
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#169Being anti discrimination started with not discriminating people for things they can't control. Race, gender, etc. Now we're moving into territory of not discriminating against optional things people choose (having children). This is a very significant change, IMO. I wonder how far it can be taken. I think there's a fair argument that since pregnancy only affects women then it counts as gender discrimination. However…
This isn't new. Companies have been trying and succeeding at discriminating against pregnant women since women have been working.
Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…
I am very much the wrong person for you to recruit in an attempt to apply the axiomatic method to discrimination laws. Discriminating against pregnant women is wrong because it's wrong, full stop.
threatofrain got it right. This is a problem we need to address, but the solutions I've seen thus far don't take unfortunate pathologies of human psychology into account, and when we don't do that, we get very surprised at the lack of results down the line. You're more than willing to try to live in a world where you say "Because we said X this is what's going to happen" but I find that to be far less proactive than trying to ask what actual responses are, as distasteful as they might be, and ways to address them.
My concern is that Rayiner's response, "we prohibit it because we made it a law" is still ignoring the key point. _it's too goddamn easy_ to discriminate and paint it as something else, too many reasons I could turn down ANY applicant, for me to just brush it off as "a law is sufficient." I believe that if this is a problem we _really_ want to fix, it's going to involve delving into some unpleasant trains of thought that aren't really "acceptable conversation" right now. I just worry that by ignoring it, the problem goes unaddressed, and we potentially foment resistance against it.
It feels naive to me to think that just because a law is "full stop necessary" in our moral frame of reference, to think that's sufficient to implement it effectively such that it generates the outcome you want in the long run.