Anonymously they say what we have all known for years.

[divadee]

I saw this article today and I have to say it didn't surprise me. Upset me and made me angry but it only says what women have known for years and years.

You're quite right, Gasp0de - without doubt the disabled are discriminated against in job selection and probably the severely overweight too for that matter

Please don't imagine I'm suggesting this is what should happen; it's just what will happen when those doing the paying get to do the choosing - and as I said, they may well be influenced by previous experience

This makes me so angry. I have worked so hard for my career and really excel. Yet because biology says that I’m the one that has to grow a human, I’m considered a liability and more of a risk than the most mediocre man. Luckily my current employer actually values me and knows that I’ll keep performing regardless of kids, but I’m dreading ever having to move.

Right @MirriVan, but it's a huge disadvantage to all the women who would rather have more time off with their children themselves.

This is a bit daft. If it were true then there would be swathes of unemployed women who couldn’t get a sniff of a job.

Furthermore rather a lot of women are bosses. It doesn’t necessarily follow that they love all women no matter what their suitability for the job.

I find a far greater point of injustice is the discrimination against older women, who aren’t going to be having maternity leaves so there’s not that excuse. I was asked at a recent interview if I could use a computer!!!!!! I think some people view 50 as being in the same bracket as 80.

yes @mirrivan - and then, if marriages or relationships split up, the woman will emerge more financially secure if she hadn't fallen in to the role of default carer.

Perhaps employers, especially small businesses, should be overcompensated by the government when parental leave is taken? Get extra money back to compensate for the extra work involved in hiring and training temporary replacements? Or overtime of existing staff?

I agree that there is discrimination against older women. At 48 I found it very hard to get a job (I have one now but it wasn't easy) whereas Michael D Higgins is considering running for president again. (I'm in Ireland). If he were a woman any thing she said that was brave, innovitive, new, daring, contraversial would be interpreted as proof of her being too old.

I’m a boss. A very stressed overworked boss. And someone going on maternity leave is another challenge and extra work. But I am more interested in people with a brain who get stuck in and I have to say the women on my teams TEND to do that more than the men, with some exceptions, so it wouldn’t put me off hiring women.

Completely agree @Maidsrus

Well parental leave is unpaid so employers are compensated by not paying the employee. What they need is to legislate for incentivised measures to SPLIT the uptake of parental leave.

Because parental leave and extended maternity leave are unpaid women often end up screwing up their pensions as well.

Really it is just disgraceful how women pay a much higher priced for parenthood than men

Why should there be discrimination against older women? And 48 isn't old anyway.

My mum was asked in job interviews when she was younger "Why should I employ you? You might leave to have children." She used to reply "An ambitious man might take a job somewhere else and leave."

I used to work with a woman who told me that she wouldn’t send her finance person, who was brilliant, on a course or put any extra time or money into her because she’d just gotten married so she’d probably be pregnant soon. So it’s not just men

@gunnybear I'm nearing the end of my career so I'm not sure short-sightedness comes into it.

Whose children are you thinking are going to pay your state pension/national insurance/tax when you retire? Very short sighted. We need to have children as a society. It's how it works.

Puzzledandpissedoff
I'd hope everyone would expect employees to be treated fairly, but what about the minority who, once a child is here, expect special treatment with their every demand catered to, no matter what the cost to employers or fellow employees?

Completely unfair to penalise the majority for that of course, but maybe unrealistic to expect it to have no effect at all on recruiters?

I 100% agree. Also, the impact on a multinational company would be somewhat less than on a small company where losing a key worker could have a devastating impact. If you had two equally skilled and experienced candidates for a job in your small business, a single male and a child bearing age female, I can understand why gunnyBear would appoint the male.

I do wonder about some of the things i read on here sometimes - it seems some people think they are doing their employers a favour by turning up at all.

And I agree that maternity leave is a problem. I used to think that it was sexist against men that there wasn’t any paternity leave in my day. Now I think it was sexist against women. You take the mayernity leave and it’s a natruAl progression into sorting childcare, appointments, emergency leave when they’re ill, play dates, school places, wraparound care etc. It never ends for a lot of us!

When you look at the implications it’s a fairly rational decision is some cases I’m afraid.

After pg stay in the work force,don’t go on mummy track or step down
Don’t prioritise a male partner career over your own,or see child care as women work
Don’t automatically take on all appts,carer days. Share with your partner
Start looking for nursery whilst pg

As someone currently on maternity leave and a former union rep, I actually think that the maternity leave law needs to be rebalanced in order to be fair towards all women, including those who can't or don't want to have children, who are lumped in together with all other women of childbearing age and discriminated against accordingly.

Maybe we should have the current (or even better) maternity leave/pay for the first child, then maybe just leave/no pay for the second, and on your own for the third. At least employers could anticipate and financially plan for 1 period of maternity leave/pay, but to employ someone who then has 3 pregnancies 2 years apart, could really damage a company.

In my role, due to health and safety, as soon as a women is pregnant they have to be found alternative duties, then if a years maternity leave is taken, your up to 19/20" months out of position, plus any accumulated annual leave, then 3 weeks refresher training, so your getting close to 2 years, and that's just for 1 pregnancy!!!

Might also help deal with over population!!

"WarPigeon", yes, but the rationality is the same as in "it's rational for me not to vaccinate my children". You will be ok as long as the majority of everyone else does not do as you do. But if everybody does as you do, you and everybody else will be royally screwed.

So your rationality is short-termist, individualist and does not consider the implications for the society as a whole. The society that you are dependent on.

This makes me so cross, because although I am of prime childbearing age I cannot have children, and it has become obvious to me over the past couple of years that I am at a disadvantage when it comes to getting the jobs I want. Time and time again, men my age with fewer qualifications than me get the jobs I applied for, and I'm fed up with it. But I guess it's not the done thing to end a job application by saying 'P.S. I'm infertile, so you're all right'.

I don't understand how we reached the position we're in now. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s workers' rights were expanding, not contracting. In the 80s, Mrs T curbed the power of the unions, which most people accepted had become too powerful, but she went far too far and now only a small minority of UK workers are in a union and workers generally have far less protection and benefits than they used to have. Why haven't we all risen up and protested? Why do we just accept with a shrug of the shoulders that employers have all the power?

Employers used to pay for training, now they expect workers to pay that themselves by going to university and starting their working lives loaded with debt.

Employers used to accept that they would need to provide a decent pension to their staff. Now they don't.

Employers used to provide not just decent sick pay but often (larger firms, anyway) would pay for them to go to a convalescent home after a major op or serious illness.

Employers used to accept that they needed a good reason to fire an employee. Now they can get rid of them on a whim in the first two years and they outsource as many jobs as possible or claim that workers are self-employed to wriggle out of any responsibility.

Employers are making a lot of money out of their employees' efforts. So where's the tax revenue going back into the UK economy to pay for the welfare state? Oh no, they don't do that either.

We are a bunch of mugs.

We are far better protected than say an employee in the US - where (generally) there is no maternity pay and they have 6 weeks off and the employer has no obligation to keep the role open....