Fucking double standards of women on maternity leave

[ShirleyPhallus]

This is sort of a TAAT but I’ve seen many of these recently

Really sick of the threads on here about maternity leave and how women shouldn’t go for jobs if they are newly pregnant as it could leave a business in the lurch to recruit their replacement. While I have some sympathy if it’s a small business, employees being able to do their duties and not being absent is a risk any business takes.

Really sick of the internalised misogyny of just how many posters on MN say how awful it is that women apply for jobs when pregnant.

Urgh sorry for the rant. Thought we were making progress but these are such 1950s attitudes

hear hear!

I totally agree. I read that thread and some of the attitudes were a disgrace.

Agree 100%

I interviewed for a job when I was pregnant. My attitude was I may need to go on maternity leave but once I’m back you’ve probably got me until retirement.

It's an interesting point but I think brushing it under the carpet that it is an issue doesn't solve any problems as the discrimination will still go on (I've faced it myself). I'm not sure on the solution but reckon it's more along the lines of a big push to flexibility and sabbatical type options for everyone so it's not uniquely a concern for women of childbearing age that are a risk and the thinking of how to deal with career breaks is more baked in all round. Plus it could give a marked improvement to quality of life for employees in general. Pretending it's not sometimes catastrophic for a small business to need to cover maternity leave just makes the discrimination more subtle.

@Isonthecase

It's an interesting point but I think brushing it under the carpet that it is an issue doesn't solve any problems as the discrimination will still go on (I've faced it myself). I'm not sure on the solution but reckon it's more along the lines of a big push to flexibility and sabbatical type options for everyone so it's not uniquely a concern for women of childbearing age that are a risk and the thinking of how to deal with career breaks is more baked in all round. Plus it could give a marked improvement to quality of life for employees in general. Pretending it's not sometimes catastrophic for a small business to need to cover maternity leave just makes the discrimination more subtle.

I agree with you that it’s a tricky issue

However, maternity pay is an issue in itself. If you interview when pregnant, the most you’ll get is maternity allowance which is £150pw. For many women, that is barely affordable to cover outgoings.

So either you have to suck it up or have a wealthy husband who can cover the expenses.

What about women who get made redundant when pregnant? Or women who have been trying to get pregnant for years? They cannot stagnate, afraid to move on just in case they then lose a role. All the while men continue to climb up the ladder because even if their spouse is pregnant, no one would expect them to declare it

I think the answer is to give women blanket enhanced pay at any stage of pregnancy when starting any role, the cost of which is covered by the government and perhaps for small businesses a small grant given to cover costs

But where do you draw the line? Should people who ski or take a bus not take a role in case they get injured? Shouldn’t take a role if you smoke in case of cancer? Etc etc etc

@ShirleyPhallus I wish I knew the answer but suspect it's a mix of lots of little changes rather than one big thing. Which makes it that much more complicated to solve.

There's no guarantee for an employer that a new hire will be any good, will show up, or won't cost money in training then leave the company. Or indeed get sick and be unable to work. If we had to complete X number of years' service as part of our contract, employers would have more of an argument (not that I'm advocating this).

If maternity pay is unaffordable for small employers those businesses should be lobbying for a national funding system or some type of insurance to mitigate against financial risk. Ideally national insurance should cover maternity pay to 100% of the woman's regular pay, that way the employer only has to find temporary cover. Statutory maternity pay, like statutory sick pay, is shite.

If companies didn't stand to lose out financially we might see less sex discrimination and less discrimination against mothers. If affordable childcare was widespread and high quality, companies would benefit also.

I haven't seen business orgs campaigning for either though.

Yep. Especially when said employee was 5 weeks pregnant at the time of interview! Why the Hell would she disclose that?!

Agree. I am so sick of horrible threads with frankly disgusting attitudes towards pregnant, working women.

Agree here too. I came back to the sanctuary of this board after being horrified at what I was reading. My dh took shared parental leave and I wish more would (although tricky with breastfeeding) so his employer 'bore the brunt' equally. It's exactly as the previous posters have put; much easier to chastise the woman who 'tricked' (one of the words that was used) the employer than lobby for reform and

I was made redundant at 5 weeks pregnant, I got a new job pretty quickly but they were furious when I told them I was pregnant. Called me a liar etc… Thankfully I retained proof of their discrimination and got a significant payout from them.

Realistically, what else could I have done, sit at home and wait until the baby was old enough to go back to work.

I started a new job pregnant, and I was horrified at some of the responses on that thread.

No woman thinks it's a fantastic idea to start a new job pregnant, but that's the way it is for some of us.

I became pregnant shortly after going for an interview so was offered the job and then after about 8 weeks realised I was pregnant. I was upfront with the employer (a school) . The only thing that was irritating was they wouldn’t send me on any training as ‘there wasn’t any point’ despite having several months of work ahead. Obviously, I didn’t qualify for any maternity pay or the maternity allowance (this was over 18 years ago). I suspect I could have got income support if I had been on my own. .. I hope.

And was made redundant when on maternity leave….billed as a restructuring…two of us both paid off. Avoided having to offer flexible working I guess. This was a large blue chip company with oodles of cash. Women with childcare issues weren’t welcomed, all the senior women had nannies and really had no sympathy.

Where I am currently working, we have two members of staff off on maternity leave, one hasn’t been technically covered so we are down a member of staff on top of all the Covid absences. Working on good will and have so far avoided any incidents down to lack of staff. This is an educational setting were there is no spare cash. The place I worked before (education) did the same leaving one adult managing 40 children every afternoon on her own.

@BitcherOfBlakiven

Yep. Especially when said employee was 5 weeks pregnant at the time of interview! Why the Hell would she disclose that?!

Totally agree. And, as an employer, it's actually much easier to work around an employee who needs leave at the start of her job, rather than - say - after 12 months. So it makes no sense to see women who are pregnant at interview as different from any other employee who might need parental or other carer's leave.

Having said that, I do see some very naive posts about mat leave. A lot of MNetters seem to work for the public sector or large companies, and don't understand the financial or operational impact of maternity leave on small businesses. Most employers cannot just 'get cover' - most roles are too specialised or require training and, even if you can find maternity cover, you bear all the costs of training up that extra person. It costs thousands beyond the reimbursed costs. 80% of my workforce is female, mostly under 50. If too many of them get pregnant in the same year, it would take us under.

I had a miscarriage at 11 weeks, one week after starting a new job. It happened on my days off so I never needed to say anything, but I would have quite liked to. It was civil service so no small businesses would have been harmed in the making of my baby. But yeah, I'd been looking for work for 4 months and only just knew there was a chance I was preggers at the time of interview.

Due to the realisation life was too short to not do what I wanted I applied for a PhD place, and did have to tell them I was pregnant when I arrived. Went down better than expected and I got 6 months stipend on mat leave (thanks UKRI).

Friend runs a small business, has a staff member off on mat leave. Business gets 105% of stat mat pay, presumably to pay the mat leave and a bit left over for mat cover extra costs. There are provisions for these things!

Friend runs a small business, has a staff member off on mat leave. Business gets 105% of stat mat pay, presumably to pay the mat leave and a bit left over for mat cover extra costs. There are provisions for these things

Total payroll costs are about 25% more than salary costs, so employers will actually be making a loss on payroll costs alone. And that's without factoring in the costs of trying to recruit and train temporary cover - if you can find it.

We need a system that supports women taking maternity leave (and carers needing carers' leave). We are not going get there by sticking our heads in the sand, and telling employers that there is no financial impact from mat leave, when this isn't true. If we don't address the financial impact properly, employers will continue to discriminate against women.

Having said that, I do see some very naive posts about mat leave. A lot of MNetters seem to work for the public sector or large companies, and don't understand the financial or operational impact of maternity leave on small businesses. Most employers cannot just 'get cover' - most roles are too specialised or require training and, even if you can find maternity cover, you bear all the costs of training up that extra person. It costs thousands beyond the reimbursed costs. 80% of my workforce is female, mostly under 50. If too many of them get pregnant in the same year, it would take us under

I can't comment on other parts of the public sector, but in my non clinical department in an NHS hospital we certainly can't just "get cover". We have never been allowed to get maternity leave cover. Even if we were allowed, we'd struggle to find someone for a short contract and it would take around 6 months to get the person fully trained up, so feels a lot of time and effort for only 6 months of proper cover. In my previous role in the department the rest of the team just picked up the work of the person on mat leave meaning things took longer and we gave a worse service. In my current role mat leave results in us having to put a project, or parts of several projects, on hold for a year. Both situations result in a big operational impact to the hospital. The women who have had mat leave are great at their jobs, obviously continued to be great after mat leave, and we wouldn't be without them, but their mat leaves have caused our department not to be fully functional.

What seems to me to be hidden in all this is that these pesky women getting pregnant left right and centre aren't doing so alone. They are having children with the father of their child, or their partner. In nearly all cases because both people in the relationship want children or are happy to have children. Yet there is this absolute opprobrium and hate aimed at women for daring to need to work whilst in early pregnancy or actively TTC. When the men involved are equally as responsible for the existence of a pregnancy.

Not to mention that still, in our society, a family life is what is the societal norm and an expected aim for young people to aspire to. But, of course if you as a woman attempt to fulfil that aspiration then you can't expect to get or keep a job!

And the PP is correct that small businesses in particular need more realistic financial support for any costs associated with maternity leave.

I'm just glad that the small business I work for and went on mat leave with is not a misogynistic environment and recognises the worth of women.

Really it's yet another thing that it's not within women's gift to solve. Life is messy and unpredictable, babies take ages to brew, women need to live while they're brewing babies and in a capitalist society that means working.

Both small and medium businesses get bunce off the government while their employees are on maternity leave and actually pretty much every business in the country has had a good whack of taxpayer money during the past two years so I'm not sure pregnant female employees really need to fix anything very much.

Not surprised they're being expected to do so though.

@RichardMarxisinnocent

Having said that, I do see some very naive posts about mat leave. A lot of MNetters seem to work for the public sector or large companies, and don't understand the financial or operational impact of maternity leave on small businesses. Most employers cannot just 'get cover' - most roles are too specialised or require training and, even if you can find maternity cover, you bear all the costs of training up that extra person. It costs thousands beyond the reimbursed costs. 80% of my workforce is female, mostly under 50. If too many of them get pregnant in the same year, it would take us under

I can't comment on other parts of the public sector, but in my non clinical department in an NHS hospital we certainly can't just "get cover". We have never been allowed to get maternity leave cover. Even if we were allowed, we'd struggle to find someone for a short contract and it would take around 6 months to get the person fully trained up, so feels a lot of time and effort for only 6 months of proper cover. In my previous role in the department the rest of the team just picked up the work of the person on mat leave meaning things took longer and we gave a worse service. In my current role mat leave results in us having to put a project, or parts of several projects, on hold for a year. Both situations result in a big operational impact to the hospital. The women who have had mat leave are great at their jobs, obviously continued to be great after mat leave, and we wouldn't be without them, but their mat leaves have caused our department not to be fully functional.

Unless the job requires little skills or training - no employers don't just get maternity cover. For anything else the pool of skilled locums and temps is very small.

Employers have to deal with maternity leave but it usually involves dividing the work amongst those who are there and/ or simply taking on more work themselves.

An employer can usually reclaim 92% of employees' Statutory Maternity , Paternity, Adoption, Parental Bereavement and Shared Parental Pay. They can reclaim 103% if the business qualifies for Small Employers' Relief. In my sector most employers pay enhanced maternity pay.

@Feliana

Really it's yet another thing that it's not within women's gift to solve. Life is messy and unpredictable, babies take ages to brew, women need to live while they're brewing babies and in a capitalist society that means working.

Both small and medium businesses get bunce off the government while their employees are on maternity leave and actually pretty much every business in the country has had a good whack of taxpayer money during the past two years so I'm not sure pregnant female employees really need to fix anything very much.

Not surprised they're being expected to do so though.

Absolutely agree that it is not women's problem to solve.

Absolutely disagree that the solution is to tell employers to shut up and count all the piles of gold that the taxpayer is generously bestowing on them. With a few well-publicised exceptions, funding for furloughs has been a drop in the ocean, compared to the losses incurred due to Covid. On top of that, cost after cost has been piled onto employers over the last decade or so, in terms of regulation and direct cost, plus dear old Brexit. And national insurance contributions go up from April.

Most business in the UK are small, with small profit margins. At best, additional costs mean that they will take on fewer staff. At worst, they will go under - which means more people unemployed, in the gig economy, or having to work for ever richer, off-shored global megacompanies.

This is a whole society problem, that needs to be solved by society as a whole. It is not women's problem to solve, but women are the group most likely to suffer if we do not solve it. Refusing to engage with, or denying, the impact on employers will just lead to more women being disadvantaged.

Women have enough work to do.

I was talking to a lady recently who said her boss won't employ a woman 'with a working womb'!!!

Totally in agreement OP.
Anyone who is an employer should have plans in place for having a pregnant employee. Would these same complainers say the same about a disabled job applicant where an employer may have to spend money making reasonable adjustments, or a job applicant who has cancer?