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Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#321

Post by Consultant32452 »

MattLaroche wrote: post #255
Consultant32452 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the paid leave and severance is really the primary issue. Sure, money is money, but it's very expensive to find a good employee. When someone goes on leave like that you can't fill the position. Since they can't fill your position your team is stuck having to work extra to pick up the slack, and then if 90% of women don't wind up coming back it's just that much longer before you can find someone decent t…

90% of moms not coming back is an exaggeration for the bay area. Part of what we're not talking about here (in this whole thread) is the cost of child care. Child care in SF is over $1700 a month, and hard to find for 3 month olds, which is why a lot of parents quit after leave. I reckon we'll get a lot more parents staying in the workforce if the government helped more with childcare across all income ranges. Childc…

I looked it up, the stat is 43% of mothers leave the work force after having a baby. Yeah, 90% is an exaggeration, but 43% is a huge chunk of women. This isn't intended to debate you, just to put a real number on it. The article I got this stat from talks about some of the things you mentioned.

I'm far from an expert so I could be totally wrong but the little bit of literature I've read on outcomes for children suggests a full time stay at home parent provides the best outcomes. That almost certainly doesn't have to be the mom specifically, but if we're going to subsidize behavior, I would prefer to subsidize whatever behavior provides the best outcomes for children. The article below suggests part time work from home opportunities with deadline based projects. That might be a reasonable answer, but again someone with actual expertise on child rearing/psychology should set policy here. The best outcomes might not be [parent] getting back to work in 6 months or even a year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/why-43-of-...

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#322

Post by ubernostrum »

lsd5you wrote: post #34

Is this really surprising? We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time (and perhaps come back with completely different motivations). There is a fundamental mismatch, and as much as some people want to frame careers as lifestyle and entitlement, the primary purpose is to get things done and produce value. The situation is even more stark for smaller companies, many o…

We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time

We don't have "meritocracy" already, so this isn't a useful objection.

And when you consider that companies constantly complain about how difficult it is to find, hire and retain good people, you'd think once they've found one they'd want to, y'know, actually work to retain that person long-term. That would, after all, be what a meritorious company would do, and by setting that example word would get round and other good people would want to work for them.

In fact, perhaps you should consider that your entire view of this is precisely the opposite way round of where it ought to be.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#323

Post by duncan_bayne »

randyrand wrote: post #140

Being 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…

> Now we're moving into territory of not discriminating against optional things people choose (having children).

We already do that in the case of religion.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#324

Post by icelancer »

falcolas wrote: post #258
icelancer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Not even remotely feasible on a single income now, unless you're talking executive pay. Yes it is. Just not if you want to live in really nice cities and have a ton of stuff. If you want to live in a suburb, commute, not own much in the way of technology, and own a house 30% of the size of what people live in now, then yeah, that's doable. Housing costs have inflated and that's worthy of note. But so have our expe…

My parents had a 2,500 sq. ft. house on 5 acres of land. They've replaced their vehicles about every 5 years. I remember twice-yearly vacations where we flew out to Mexico or the eastern seaboard. I was, by current standards, spoiled rotten when it comes to the money my parents spent on tech for me. They've both been able to retire (including snowbird trips to AZ) without worries about money due to a pension and inve…

I could easily replicate my familial upbringing if I lived in one of the cities I grew up in (Cleveland) and had my father's single income as an electrician with my mother working part-time (mostly for her own sanity, not income). I've checked real estate prices and cost of living there, it's totally doable. Not much has changed there; if anything, tradesman jobs are in desperate need of good journeymen and apprentices as tons of kids go to college instead of exploring blue-collar jobs.

Where I live now (Seattle), hell no. But Seattle was a lot different 30 years ago.

And if I just kept my last job w/ a salary in the mid 100Ks and worked remotely, I'd live like a king in Cleveland. I literally wouldn't know what to buy or where to live. In Seattle I live in a "bad" area in a townhome that I could barely afford during the dip and now I won the idiot's lottery and am sitting on a property that has appreciated by double.

But through it all, Cleveland still exists. And I could easily live in a suburb of Cleveland and get a decent enough bungalow boring house for under 100k that doesn't need any work done to it except a paint job.

I bet I'd get even more value in Detroit or maybe Pittsburgh.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#325

Post by adrianN »

airnomad wrote: post #307
tinbad wrote: post #14

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…

"WE had twins so SHE wasn't going back to work anyway" I'd say you were discriminating her way more than Google. Kids are ruinous for women careers but only partly for practice like one described. The other reason is that we as families, partners and society in general accept that kids are, essentially, a woman job.

Some women actually like taking care of children more than working their job.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#326

Post by adrianN »

solatic wrote: post #308
habosa wrote: post #55

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…

> is that always reasonable? This is why remote-only work culture is so important for social justice in tech. Flexible working hours from home gives women the freedom to work from their recovery beds, walk away from the computer to feed their newborns, be there to give their kids a snack and ask them how was school when they get home. One of the best hiring strategies is to focus on workers whom the market is underva…

Good luck doing anything resembling work when you're having a newborn at home and haven't sleep properly in weeks.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#327

Post by adrianN »

ldp01 wrote: post #261
tomp wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say this with a straight face?! It's a fact that (some) women need to stay off work (bed-ridden before birth, in hospital after birth). It's also a fact that men don't need to. Obviously, men don't need to work and women don't need to take care of the kids (above and beyond what's biologically required of them), but (1) on average, outcomes will be influenced by underlying biological reality, and (2) it's…

> How can you say this with a straight face?! It's a fact that (some) women need to stay off work (bed-ridden before birth, in hospital after birth). It's also a fact that men don't need to. You're referring to a timescale of days which a woman will likely need to spend in hospital. I believe jschwartzi is referring to the weeks/months of maternity/paternity leave following the initial birth. There isn't a hard biolo…

My mother was bed-bound for several months during pregnancy. It's more common than you think.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#328

Post by pimmen »

skookumchuck wrote: post #313
nostrademons wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's a concrete example of the types of problems existencebox is highlighting: My sister was laid off from her employer of 8 years 3 months after her first child was born. She was a top performer, and they'd been throwing raises and bonuses at her before she got pregnant. Over the same year or so (there were 3-4 rounds of layoffs), every single pregnant woman or mother with kids under 2 that she knew at the comp…

> Where will you find the time? If she doesn't have the time to work on a lawsuit, why would she have had the time to work at her job?

Because if she’s finding the money for a lawsuit she’s busy working.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#329

Post by alfredallan1 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #240
leetcrew wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously companies have all the power, and we need to fight a guerrilla style war against corporate hegemony, and we obviously have to take strategic consideration of these facts. virtually no one who posts on this website will be better off after the revolution. why dedicate your life to screwing yourself?

>Obviously companies have all the power Major corporations may have a lot. The random corner shop with two employees certainly doesn't.

So the only victims of said guerilla style warfare will be the small shops. BiCo will get away with it, and get emboldened at their success. Might not pushing for a policy change be a better altrnative?

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#330

Post by tathougies »

wrs wrote: post #226
tathougies wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Laws are precisely how society imposes its concerns on corporations. The concept of a corporation only exists in the first place because society decided such a thing was useful. The purpose of corporations is whatever society decides it is.

I agree with you. I was stating current reality, not making a moral statement
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