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Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

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Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#211

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

sandino wrote: post #183
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothesis is extraordinarily unlikely. Google has continuously expanded benefits for men and women going on parental leave over these last years. It would make no sense whatsoever for them to also systematically harass pregnant women out of the workforce. If they were concerned about the costs of maternity, they could just have expanded those benefits more slowly. That would have had dramatically more impact, a…

No one is saying that Google is engaging in "systematic" harassment here. But it may very well be that they are willfully (or simply incompetently) turning a blind eye in this one particular case.

That is exactly what the person I was replying to suggested. If the managers who harass aren't renegades, then the harassment is systematic, by definition.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#212

Post by lazyasciiart »

paulddraper wrote: post #179
lazyasciiart wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should women be allowed to work? What if they're married and working in close contact with single men? What if they're pregnant? Should the company be allowed to give someone else their job while they are on maternity leave? Should the company even pay them while on maternity leave? All these questions are "politics"

Are you talking about city/state/national laws? Or company policies? "Employees here should have benefit X" or "I should get paid Y" or "Z should be promoted" aren't really political in the usual sense (it's office politics, sure). "The government should on pain of imprisonment require everyone to X" or "political candidate Y should be elected" is politics. And creates unnecessary division in the workplace.

I think we disagree on the meaning of "political". "We should give every woman here a raise because we have historically paid women less". "We should send recruiters to historically black colleges because we don't hire enough black people". Both suggestions have nothing to do with laws or elections but would be identified as "political".

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#213

Post by JetSpiegel »

ben7799 wrote: post #13

I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time. On the "evil point haired boss" level it seems these types of things like their internal message boards cause a lot of trouble for the company. On the less evil side it seems like employees waste a lot of time on these internal sites and all the internal social justice stuff. Mayb…

> I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time.

See The Circle, the Emma Watson film.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#214

Post by lazyasciiart »

lrem wrote: post #209
lrem wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very good question. At some point the board disclosed the maternity benefits rate, I'll see if I can find it. But my guess would be on the "it's fine" side, this is the only one of the dozens of scandals I remember that involved a discriminated pregnant woman.

My search-fu failed me here, no data has been found.

Handwaving all of this for fun: 1/3 of employees are women, and let's say they are all millennials for ease of calculation. In 2016 there were about 2 million births among 40 millions millennial women, so 5% were pregnant. I'm going to arbitrarily halve that for Google employees, because educational achievement/income both correlate with lower birth rates. 2.5% of 1/3 approximately says 1% of Google employees are pregnant each year, or 1000 people. So out of 3000 pregnancies in the last few years, you've heard of this incident, so that's 1% of the 100 incidents, or 1/30 pregnant women at Google experiencing discrimination. Sounds pretty high - if you were in a "new mothers" group at Google with 100 women who'd recently been pregnant, three of them would have stories like this.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#217

Post by Pfhreak »

manigandham wrote: post #173
Pfhreak wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest people do when workplace must intersect with politics. For example, you need access to a gender neutral restroom or shower facility? Should you not advocate for that internally? Let's say you are an ally for someone who needs an affordance like a gender neutral facility, should you not speak up on their behalf?

It seems this is the only example ever presented. Is gender really that big of an issue? The individual is free to discuss with their company about their needs and wants. HR can handle this easily by following the law and drafting appropriate policies. It does not need a big battle with an "ally" at all. That's what leaving politics out of the workplace means. An individual's issues should be left to the individual.

I posted this downthread:

How is your access to a gender neutral restroom or shower facility? Do you have a quiet place to pray multiple times per day? If you need a place to breastfeed (not a restroom), is that something available? What about dilating post gender reassignment surgery? Does your workplace offer the same benefits to same sex partners? Do you have to take a badge photo, if so, what name gets used? Can you wear head coverings in your badge photo? Have you ever heard expressions like, "Let's see what's under the kimono" in a business meeting? How is wheelchair access to your site? Can I operate all the machines you use if I am blind (can I navigate to facilities? Use all the machines in the breakroom? etc.)?

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