Help- work maternity policy is now expectant workers

[DazzlePaintedBattlePants]

Just had to sign off on a risk assessment for one of my team who’s pregnant and it turns out that we don’t have an expectant or breastfeeding mothers H&S policy but now an expectant and breastfeeding workers policy. I want to challenge this on the basis that the protected characteristics are either sex or pregnancy and maternity - does anyone have any good starting points?

It’s a high profile university in the Fens, if anyone wants to chip in…

"new and expectant individual" is nonsensical and it's not clear at all what it's pertaining to

"new and expectant mother" makes it clear it's about pregnancy and childbirth

Trying so hard to avoid female-centric words that they've themselves look like complete and utter morons.

Btw OP, just googling "new and expectant individual" gets you there. That's how unique (in this case not a good thing) this wording is.

Even 'new mother' is unclear as it would seem to relate only to someone having their first child.

What's an "expectant worker"? A hopeful applicant for the grounds keeping job?

Hahaha, just noticed that the find and replace job of individuals has led to weird font size changes and such excellent grammar as 'if an individuals has any concerns'

Get it together, Fens-adjacent university.

Screenshot didn't post? Trying again

Trying so hard to avoid female-centric words that they've themselves look like complete and utter morons.

That they've MADE themselves
Classic Muphry's law.

'New mother' could also be a woman who is adopting or fostering (or buying a baby through surrogacy) and isn't pregnant.

Maybe the Angela Ames case is vaguely useful (not the same, post birth sex discrimination due to breastfeeding)

campbelllawobserver.com/men-can-lactate-too-breastfeeding-mom-loses-discrimination-case/

If this university has been receiving incorrect legal advice from a lobby group that aren't lawyers and they do not correctly state the protected characteristic of sex in their policies they could be leaving themselves open to sex discrimination claims.

Hi OP, we had a similar issue with a policy which was for menopause with no mention of the word women. It had a disclaimer saying we’ve not used the word woman to be inclusive to trans people. I emailed to say that the policy was to promote equality for women as they are a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and so to exclude the word women was disappointing and many of the sentences didn’t make sense and gave examples - “1 in 100 people will go through menopause early”!! I requested that the disclaimer be the other way round - some people experience the menopause who don’t identify as women but still need to be covered by the policy. I also advised that when prostates were talked about the word men was used and so it was very exclusionary of women who must retain language to talk about themselves and their bodies. At least they’ve called it breastfeeding and not chestfeeding so you’re halfway there 😳 Good luck

I really hope this sexist crap gets picked up by the mainstream media. ‘New or expectant person’ indeed.

This is such a huge piece of tokenism that clearly nobody on the team even thought it important enough to check it for sense before publishing it. And unfortunately it could have really bad effects for women, because they are no longer present in policies that directly and exclusively affect them.

How disturbing that an email must have gone around to someone literally telling them just to ‘erase woman’ and they duly complied and uploaded this garbled, insulting mess. How is this language genuinely necessary. I’d want to ask: What impact assessment have they done before making this language change? What user testing (both for comprehension and for giving readers offence) have they done?

Plus, at the end they link straight to the Health and Safety Executive document that is for ‘New and Expectant Mothers’ .. with no caveats around HSE’s use of accurate biological language.
This looks like the university complacently and misogynistically signalling from inside their own bubble; desperately not to be criticised on social media for using the ‘wrong’ language. Completely oblivious and uncaring about their female staff.

Expecting what?

An Amazon delivery?
That they'll need a shit soon?
That they're going to have s good day?
That the Messiah will return in 3 weeks time?

A lot of the new language depends on people gathering the meaning from the context.

That is not inclusive, it's not plain English. And it's just fucking odd.

If they want to do this, why not people who are pregnant / BF ..?

Why this new craze to use language that is unusual, far less likely to be understood, etc?

Expecting sounds like a Victorian euphemism.

desperately not to be criticised on social media for using the ‘wrong’ language.

Complying with Stonewall surely?

Surely the language used in the policy should mirror the language used in the HSE legislation and relevant ACOP?

Sorry, I thought this was about breastfeeding but the same principle applies - we already have language that describes women and pregnancy!

Did no one proof read the web page? It’s shockingly bad. Replacing ‘women’ and ‘mother’ with individuals really doesn’t work.

Maternity action the well respected charity/ campaign group were against removing woman, mother etc from the maternity bill which went through parliament (linked above).

mobile.twitter.com/MaternityAction/status/1363914365603356672

mobile.twitter.com/MaternityAction/status/1364950903355277326

It might be worth seeing if they published a blog on it, or contacting them.

The grammar of 'expectant worker's etc doesn't work at all. An expectant mother is some who is not yet a mother, but is waiting to become a mother. An expectant worker must be someone who is not yet a worker but is waiting to become a worker.

OMG aubergine that's hilarious/ ridiculous!

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants, did you end up challenging this?

They’ve passed me over to someone in EDI, who’s on leave….

An expectant worker must be someone who is not yet a worker but is waiting to become a worker.

That makes sense.

Although not that they would need breast feeding facilities over and above the workers who have already fulfilled expectations.

@Iamanaubergine

Did no one proof read the web page? It’s shockingly bad. Replacing ‘women’ and ‘mother’ with individuals really doesn’t work.

What if this was deliberate? Surely it's not that hard to proof read and have a quick glance to make sure it all looks right. Is it too optimistic to think that the person writing this didn't actually agree with what they're being asked to do, so they did such an obviously terrible job of it to make a mockery of the whole thing?

@Notexpectant

My work (university) did this, it was what actually peaked me. Ours used expectant parents. I pointed out that that would also include my DH as he too was an expectant parent yet he had not been impacted nearly as much as me by the physical or psychological impact of four pregnancies.

I raised the issue at the time that we had a 23% sex pay gap that pregnancy and return to work policies no doubt contributed to. Without being able to name the problems affecting women’s career progression, how can they possible address them.

I also raised the fact that it was ambiguous terminology that is not consistent with the equality act 2010, the HSE guidance for pregnancy or RCOG guidelines, all of which use the word woman.

The policy is less bad a talks about pregnant individuals now rather than expectant parents.

As someone who has had several pregnancy losses I also raised that expectant parents was problematic for me as I wasn’t necessarily expecting to become a parent, the reason I needed a risk assessment was due to pregnancy and because I am a woman.

Great post @Notexpectant . Sorry got what you have been through

@Tittie I hope so!