Work maternity policy that does not mention mother or woman

[furusato]

Just that really I'm naffed off. I'm not sure whether to comment or protest. The entire policy just references colleague with no mention of mother or woman or women. I feel like woman is being erased unnecessarily, but I also have enough on my plate without causing a fuss over a policy that is neutral. Any advice/comments or experience?

I'm outraged with you.

The policy should refer repeatedly to 'new and expectant mothers' and 'women'.

I'm pretty TERFy but happy to include a paragraph addressing concerns relating to anyone's particular gender identity upon request.

The policy should be complemented by other policies to form a suite of policies include paternity/maternity support, adoption, and other types of family leave. The policy writers can go and wet themselves about being inclusive and right-on in those policies of they so wish.

I'm sick of women being erased.

If there's one thing that's true, it's that we were all born of a woman. I hate this reductionist, misogynist erasure of women and mothers, and our hard-fought-for rights.

It is very frustrating. Only a female can take maternity leave as only a female can give birth. If they want to be inclusive, they can use women and others born female.

As a pedant, I also intensely dislike the grammatically incorrect usage of the word "colleague" when they mean employee.

You do have to pick your battles though as you can't fight them all. I generally object to the factually incorrect aspects of policies. So the claim that gender also legally refers to gender identity (I'm in Ireland where they snuck in gender to replace sex in equality legislation) I've corrected. I've also corrected the claim that identifying as a particular gender legally entitles someone to use opposite sex facilities. It hasn't yet been tested for someone with a GRC but it definitely is not the case without a GRC.

That would piss me off too, is there anywhere where it doesn't actually make any sense because it doesn't say woman or mother, I think I would start with that if I wanted to go in gently, though it's annoying that we don't feel safe enough to say pregnancy and motherhood is something that happens to women.

The Menopause policy at my old place of work was the same! The words women, woman, female were completely missing. It did however point out that "male managers might find it difficult to talk to colleagues about the menopause" so it was clearly fine to refer to men! I knew it would be pointless to raise it with HR and was leaving anyway, but I did try to point it out to as many friendly colleagues as possible in the hope they would take it up after I left.

colleague or pregnant colleague or colleague who is pregnant?
And is the leave over and above the legal minimums?

Because a sperm providing colleague may be entitled to the leave too if HR were busy and desexed it too much.

Do they talk about PAternity leave and who can take that?

How is the adoption policy worded? If it is the same word for word and just changing maternity to adoption, SMP to SAP etc you might be able to raise it in a “it looks like the wording from the adoption leave policy was copied over and not quite updated correctly, it reads a bit wrong” kind of way, if you’d find that easier.

All the same. I've just asked why mother and woman are omitted.

I've always wondered, do TIFs who give birth only ever take paternity leave?
You know, what with them being fathers and everything...

Could be one for your workplace to answer @furusato

Oh FFS 🤦‍♀️

The irony is that for every other type of leave (adoption, paternity) including both sexes or using gender neutral language is helpful because you really will have both women and men eligible (lesbian couples, gay couples), but maternity leave only applies to women. Yet that is the one they are so keen to change. Gah.

You can blame Archie Norman when he was CEO of Asda, or those who (mis)interpreted what he said: "Our staff are our colleagues and our colleagues are our staff." He was trying to deal with a culture which he felt looked down on staff working at checkouts, stacking shelves, working in warehouses. Suddenly everyone was referred to as "colleagues" instead of "staff" within Asda, as if that made any difference to how people perceived each other. Other sheep supermarket chains followed suit, and then other companies, both retail and non-retail.

We really are very stupid about language. Similar fashions are everywhere - Black not black, coloured not Black, person of colour not coloured, BAME not POC, black not BAME. No wonder we get hung up over third person pronouns and the consequences of fashionable language manipulation change are often ignored.

My company has a parental leave policy which applies to both mothers and fathers, meaning if the father works at my company, and his wife/partner has a child, he is also entitled to 6months paid leave.

Is this what is meant?

And of cource BAME includes white people

Thankfully common sense prevails. We all know only women can have children, and I do believe all this compliance everywhere with terminology is forced. When really we all know it's biologically impossible for men to get pregnant. Men can think they can get pregnant all they like, but it's scientifically impossible isn't it.

I share your frustration, OP, it is so irritating! All this, so a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of the population won't feel alienated - leaving a large percentage of the remaining large percentage alienated as hell😡

The ad campaign re flu vaccinations here in Ireland came up with what I thought was an elegant work-around, they said that the vaccinations were particularly important 'if you have a weakened immune system, or if you are pregnant', so it avoided any irritating circumlocutions by addressing a 'you' who knows she's a she!

Actually I've read further down the page, and it says 'pregnant women' without any trimming or garnishes,.

Further further down the page, it said you could get a free jab if you were 'in regular contact with pigs, poultry or waterfowl' which was a lovely evocation of Nature and rural life in a boring old health information website
🐷🐖🐓🐣🐸
[the frog identifies as a waterfowl in the absence of a relevant emoji]

I've just had a quick look at the Government Statutory Maternity Pay and Leave employer guide and a few model policies online, and they are all gender neutral even when talking about women who have given birth. IDK if this is a new policy.

The Equality Act explanatory notes state that ''men cannot claim privileges for women connected with pregnancy or childbirth.'' So there's no legal need to maternity policies to be gender neutral.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/2/2/1/1'

https://www.gov.uk/employers-maternity-pay-leave

https://maternityactionemployers.org.uk/section-model-policies-and-resources/

Nope https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement#:~:text=Parental%20leave%20is%20unpaid.,unless%20the%20employer%20agrees%20otherwise).
Same as
https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave
or
https://www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay

The 6 month looks as if going over the legal right to time off.
If payment is a benefit that is not required by law the company is creating 2 class of people who get extra rights under a non-protected class of parent.
Women and only those women who began to physically grow a baby are a protected class under the Equality Act and by specific employment law.

MarieDeGournay credit where credit is due the simple direct wording using the direct noun you is a result of years of campaigning by Irish Adult Literacy groups and Disability groups.

And ahemm... canaries in the country side re swine/bird flu 🦆🦢🦩🦚

Hi OP, just wondering if you were aware of the origin of the word 'maternity' ? Happy reading! 🙂