Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 494 posts

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

#221

Post by somecontext »

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…

The phenomenon you describe is not new. Discrimination law differs by jurisdiction, but there are various protected classes that may be seen as "optional things people choose". People will not agree on precisely which such classes truly reflect choice, but some examples may include religion, familial/marital status (and related), political activity/affiliation (and related), pregnancy (and related), military/veteran status, matriculation/student status, place of residence/business, whistleblowing ("anti-retaliation"), source of income, smoking, and participation in lawful activities during non-work hours. (Some people believe even more class membership reflects choice; indeed, this is often a factor in their reasoning about whether the classes should be protected.)

Some of these classes are protected in the United States as of the Civil rights acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as other federal laws from 1974 and 1978. (The protection of different religions is, of course, a founding principle of the United States. However, many people do not believe religion is a choice.)

The following webpage was helpful in assembling this list and includes a few amusing items such as membership in the Communist party (not protected in Nebraska) as well as having a degree in theology (protected in Oregon): http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/discrimina...

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

#222

Post by sunir »

existencebox wrote: post #142
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

The economy exists to serve the people not the other way around. The purpose of life is to preserve and develop life. If the economy is making it hard to live and reproduce the economy is maladaptive and will fail.

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

#223

Post by stevenwoo »

pertymcpert wrote: post #121

I'm really surprised by the number of comments here that support this kind of discrimination. I thought we were better than this.

It should be expected - the high number of comments that regularly showed up in support of Damore's scientific (in the sense of being in the ballpark and selectively referencing some social science work) arguments in his internal post that got him fired when that was a hot topic was pretty disappointing.

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

#224

Post by [deleted] »

giantsloth wrote: post #207
giantsloth wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large businesses do not pay their fair share to society and therefore should incur the cost of helping pay for the people that maintain and build their business.

I also agree that larger businesses should shoulder higher burden than smaller ones, but if we make any business pay in a headcount sensitive way, then we are creating disincentives which may be explored in opaque ways. Your third paragraph you say that this points to collective burden, so you actually don't agree that larger businesses should shoulder higher burden. You are more worried about the actions of the comp…

[deleted]

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

#225

Post by mrowland »

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…

On a personal level, children are optional; on a societal level they really aren't.

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

#226

Post by wrs »

tathougies wrote: post #129
Retra wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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

#227

Post by not_kurt_godel »

lhorie wrote: post #219
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an equally logical statement: If you only have 10 fingers, you can usually also get by with 9. Even a healthy finger consumes a non-trivial amount of oxygen from your blood and has a nail that must be trimmed so it's not a big deal if you accidentally chop one of them off. If the loss of a finger would endanger your livelihood, you probably shouldn't be in that profession in the first place.

If you're trying to suggest that you should hire if you had 1M/yr revenue and 9 employees making 100k each, go ahead and try doing the accounting math for a new hire and see how that goes, vs if you were making 2M/yr.

I'm suggesting that your blanket statement about the triviality of hiring or not hiring a 10th employee is patently absurd on multiple levels. Even the dichotomy you posed in your reply is nonsensical - why is your assumption that the 2 options for revenue are 1M vs 2M? What if it's 1.3M, and your 9 employees are barely able to handle the workload?

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

#228

Post by erik_seaberg »

ubernostrum wrote: post #201
JungleGymSam wrote: post #90

Earlier 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.

Let's try a re-frame. This isn't necessarily how I'd prefer to argue, but it might be a more productive way to explain the point to some people. In the United States, there are many people who are in the reserve of the military, or in the National Guard. They often need to take some amount of time away from work for regular training and refresher sessions with the rest of their unit, in order to stay ready for wartim…

If society agrees your employee is doing something more important than work, fine, but then society should compensate you rather than demanding you take it in the shorts (and all the ugly incentives that creates).

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

#230

Post by ubernostrum »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #228
ubernostrum wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's try a re-frame. This isn't necessarily how I'd prefer to argue, but it might be a more productive way to explain the point to some people. In the United States, there are many people who are in the reserve of the military, or in the National Guard. They often need to take some amount of time away from work for regular training and refresher sessions with the rest of their unit, in order to stay ready for wartim…

If society agrees your employee is doing something more important than work, fine, but then society should compensate you rather than demanding you take it in the shorts (and all the ugly incentives that creates).

If you disagree that this is a useful thing, you can move to a society which shares your views.

If your attitude is purely one of "don't use any of my money to do this", well, a government-run compensation system would be tax-funded and would use... some of your money. In fact, it would probably just be implemented similarly to employer payroll taxes, so it would mean you'd get to pay into it even if you somehow manage never to have an employee who has a child. Then you could complain about paying into a system that's not paying back out to you!

Or you could just learn to deal with the price of living in a civilized society, and accept that while this may be one specific benefit you'll never take advantage of, there are plenty of benefits you do get to take advantage of, that perhaps others don't, and that they pay into them regardless.

(and that's without considering that hiring and onboarding replacement employees is expensive, too, if your policy is to fire/not hire people who choose to have children, so please be sure to consider that as one of your costs)

Post reply on HN