Help me word this email - not going for promotion

[Indoorcamping]

So, I'll try and keep this brief.

I do a role, to keep it vague we'll say admin. I do a fair bit more in terms of responsibility than the other admins. We also traditionally had two senior admins and a supervisor. We currently only have one senior since someone left in May.

Around that time a colleague got promoted to senior admin. No advertising of the role or interview process. It was the same when colleague who left got the role.

I was a bit fed up as the promoted colleague and myself were at a very similar level before i went on my 1st maternity leave (June 2019-2020). After coming back it felt like he was essentially my boss. To the point i started to wonder if he'd been promoted and nobody wanted to tell me.

When i was informed of colleagues promotion back in May i was told they'd also be looking for another senior admin. A month earlier I'd told them i was pregnant.

I think you can see where this is going.

Out of the current staff I'm the obvious choice. Though I'm quite quiet and i think management have concerns that i wouldn't be good at people management. That's only based on personality, I've never been a supervisor so I'm untested.

The new job was advertised both internally and externally on Friday. So four months after it was announced.

Today is my last day before maternity leave.

I could apply, i know they would interview me but it's clear it'd be for show. They'd find reasons not to give me the job.

I'm so frustrated, i think if i wasn't going on maternity leave they'd give me a chance. In fact i think they'd have asked me to take on the role in a temporary way back in May as a sort if trial period. That's how it work with the others.

I don't see the point in putting myself though the interview process but i also want to give a reason why I'm not. I should have my say, but how do i word it?

I'll also say I'm not going to be going the grievance route. While it's clear to me I'm not getting the same opportunities as others due to pregnancy, its not as easy to prove. It just doesn't seem worth the stress. I earn under 20k of that's relevant.

I think you should just apply. I can’t see any point in complaining about a process or outcome when you did not participate in the process.

You can't complain if you don't apply

I agree that you should just apply. Their response to any email you send them would surely be "well, you're welcome to apply".
Even if you don't get the job then they will know you are interested in promotion. Although in your situation, if I didn't get the job, I would be looking to move on once I was back from maternity leave.

Apply. You're just assuming you won't be successful, but have nothing to base that on.

I'm super diffident & don't want to be promoted.

You DO want to be promoted.
Just apply.

So you’ll be saying to your employer “I’m not going to apply because I assume you will discriminate against me”?

That lets them completely off the hook because they’ll say “we’re really disappointed you’d make such an outrageous assumption, we would of course not have discriminated but fine you’ve not applied we’ll appoint someone else”.

Apply, and then if they find a spurious reason to turn you down, you might be in a position to complain or challenge.