Reader Responds to Bias Against Moms

Last week, the SF Weekly posted an article about how MomsRising is fighting the "bias" against mothers:

Mother’s Work

Some working moms face job discrimination, while others encounter barriers to success. They're all potential activists for the new grass-roots group, MomsRising.

MomsRising wants to address the obstacles faced by working mothers up and down the socioeconomic spectrum and push legislation to eliminate them. The barriers vary: Some women struggle to keep their jobs while managing pregnancy or child care, while others feel they've been knocked off the leadership track by inflexible work schedules or bias against mothers. Their reactions, however, are strikingly consistent. When women can't be both model employees and stellar moms, they feel frustrated and defeated, and often blame themselves. Rowe-Finkbeiner says they're turning their anger in the wrong direction: "We argue that when this many people are experiencing the same problems at the same time, it's a societal issue, not a personal failing."

This week, a reader responded in a letter to the editor:

Where's Dad?:

While I enjoyed Eliza Strickland's "Mother's Work," [Dec. 6] I found it one-dimensional. Often, the reason employers do not want mothers as workers is because — quell surprise — they don't work as much as childless workers or men.

Unfortunately, due to pervasive sexism, women still take the brunt of child care, usually working 10 more hours a week on housework/child care than fathers (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). The missing part of Strickland's equation are fathers — where are they? Why aren't they picking up their kid when she's sick, or teaching them yoga? There's a reason her article is called "Mother's Work" not "Parents' Work."

Besides, it's unrealistic for mothers to expect they would get the same pay and prestige for doing a worse job than other employees. I'm sorry, but you just can't be as good a lawyer working 40 hours a week as you can working 60.

Having children in this day and age is a choice: to expect that that choice should not affect your career is delusional.

I'm beginning to wish that a blog could give a standing ovation.

Read comments to this post on Childfree News.

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Respect the Personal Lives of Employees Without Offspring

Corner Office: Child-Free Workers

These situations are at the center of workplace skirmishes that threaten to erupt into full-scale warfare, because most employers will only give this worker the time if Max is her son, and employees without children resent that.

“Our company says it wants to help balance the demands of work and personal life,” might say one of your child-free employees, “but they seem to think that personal life is the same as children. I’m tired of watching the parents walk out of here at 5 to pick up their kids while the rest of stay here and work. It isn’t fair.”

This is a highly emotional issue. Parents argue that juggling work and family is tough. They face child-care crises, doctors’ appointments and family situations that require them to take time off. They say their co-workers don’t see the time they work at home after the kids are in bed. Besides, they argue, someone has to raise the next generation.

Parents in the Workplace

Fair enough, say those without children, but we’re tired of feeling that our personal lives don’t matter. Such an employee might say: “I get asked all the time to help out so someone can go to his kid’s soccer game, or whatever. And I do it. But when I ask them to return the favor so I can do something that’s important to me, they’re always too busy.”

Class Discussion

The video of my presentation to the class will be uploaded here. I presented starting at 1:38 Tuesday.

Our class uses the question tool - a means by which the stdents in the class submit and vote on questions to the presenter. I didn't get to address all the questions during my presentation, but posted the discussion here.

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New Podcast on Workplace Benefits Project

Thanks to Chris the Fixed Kitty for her first of two podcasts on the subject. The podcast is this week's edition of her regular podcast Adult Spaces.

The podcast will be added to the project website by the end of the day; keep watching the site for updates.

An article by Jerry Steinberg, founding "non-father" of No Kidding International has been added. As special thanks to Jerry - he rolled his car this week, and we send him our best wishes for recovery.

Lastly, an article by Teri of the Purple Women and Friends blog has been incorporated into the site as well.

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New Michigan law makes it illegal for men to leave pregnant women

So, essentially, if you're in a relationship with a pregnant woman, you can't leave her, because that would be considered trying to coerce her into having an abortion. If she's physically abusive, or if you think the kid's not yours, or if you've had a vasectomy and know the kid's not yours, you're still on the hook.

You can find an Op-Ed piece in the Detroit Times here:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061130/OPINION01/611300306/1008

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