A PREVIOUS POST mentioned the case of  a former vice president at Goldman Sachs. The woman, who was fired during her second maternity leave, has sued her employer for sex discrimination. She claims she was penalized and relegated to “second-class status” at her workplace because she was a mother.

Maggie Fox writes:

I am a childless female manager at a company where success depends on the ability to serve clients well, attract new clients, and work a high number of billable hours. As an employer, my responses to your “Mommy Bomb” post and subsequent comments were as follows: 

1) In a business that depends on the quality of the workers, providing 12 weeks parental leave is a small price to pay to attract talent. That is why so many companies exceed the requirements of the law by providing longer leave periods and paying their workers during parental leave. Far from being a drain, my company’s generous leave provisions are a tool that helps us compete. 

2) Women who arrange in advance for a 12-week leave are far less a burden than fathers who return to work harried and exhausted just a week after the birth of a new baby. These fathers are often unable to fulfill commitments that we are relying on them to fulfill because they chose not to take their parental leave. As a manager, I wish fathers as well as mothers would take the whole 12 weeks! 

3) I certainly agree that a new mother or any other employee who can no longer pull his or her weight at work for whatever reason should not be advanced along with those who are pulling their weight. But I think it is unfair (and, of course, unlawful) to assume without evidence that a given mother will no longer be able to compete. Plenty of mothers continue to perform in the workplace just fine (and their numbers, such as revenue generated, prove it). You and others may not approve of their division of labor at home, but as an employer, that is none of my business. 

4) I was surprised at the offense taken at the lawsuit’s claim that “working mothers are treated like second class citizens who should be at home with their children.” This wasn’t an insult to homemakers. It was a statement about the second class treatment working mothers receive as employees at Goldman Sachs compared to other employees. 

And even if it were meant as a statement that homemakers are second class citizens, I am still having trouble seeing the insult. Saying that you homemakers are in fact second class citizens is not a statement about your value or your abilities; rather, it is a statement about how you are treated. Saying that homemakers are second-class citizens (an observation I often make) is an indictment, not an endorsement, of the second-class treatment you receive. 

Incidentally, I disovered your blog when I was googling Leo Tolstoy and initially assumed, based on the “Thinking Housewife” moniker, that I had discovered a new feminist blog! How wrong I was, alas, although I did enjoy your post on Tolstoy.

Laura writes:

Thank you. I doubt you would find an article about Tolstoy on a feminist blog.  

In my post on the woman suing Goldman Sachs I gave the impression that American companies are the victims of feminism. In fact, feminism has served business well. Many women make excellent employees and it is always in the interest of business to expand the labor market. Furthermore, studies have shown that women prefer to hire other women. You say you must offer generous maternity leave to attract good employees. I guess what I see everywhere – young college-educated men going to tutor English in Korea or work on organic farms in Europe because there are no jobs for them here, young adults delaying family formation because men cannot make a decent living, and older men in their 50s and 60s laid off and unable to find work – is not relevant to your field. As a manager, it is your obligation to look for the best employees you can find. I do not fault you for that and, again, I don’t doubt that you have found excellent women employees. But, I am not concerned with just your company or with business alone.

Human beings are amazingly adaptable. For instance, let’s say I decided to open a military school for five and six year olds. Let’s say, I dressed the children in uniforms and taught them military games and exercises. They might conduct drills and mock battles in the school yard. I could invite you into my school and show you around, saying, “Look these children are perfectly happy.” You’re not used to this and might say, “But this is not normal. Children should not be soldiers.” 

I could say, “But, look at those children laughing while they are fighting. They are perfectly fine. It is in their nature to be soldiers.”

I give this scenario as a way of explaining how I react to your description of twelve-week parental leaves. To me, this is abnormal and anti-human. It destroys the love that is at the heart of civilization and that makes life worth living.

It wouldn’t matter if it was 24-week, or 48-week, or 64-week parental leaves. That would be no different. The fact is, the very notion of “parental leave” commercializes what is fundamental and sacred, turning it into a minimum contract for time.

Certainly, women can become what men once were. We can make this seem normal. But, your business will come and go. The character of our culture will last for generations. The people we form now will have an influence many years from now. The mass influx of women into the labor market has created profound personal unhappiness and social failure.

No advanced civilization has been kept afloat by twelve-week parental leaves. If you can point to one flourishing society, one decent society, in which a majority of children were raised by institutions or by strangers while both their parents were many miles away, I would be interested to know. Examine all of the leading social indicators of the last 50 years. Divorce, single motherhood, infertility, low fertility, depression, youth suicide, drug addiction, childhood obesity – these are a few of the things that afflict our culture in unprecedented levels. Here is a list I drew up of all that constitutes responsible parenthood. This takes mothers and fathers: mothers, the present, abiding spiritual force who saves the young from harm and discovers their best, and fathers who lead, discipline, and protect.

Affluent families can often cover up the void in their lives with busyness, popular culture and materialism. The poor or less fortunate cannot do this as easily. They don’t have the same margin of error or the same compensations for family.

The solution for now is not to bar women from the labor market, but to allow companies to hire and fire regardless of sex. I would actually likely to see customary discrimination in favor of men, but this should arise naturally, and not be imposed by laws in the way favoritism for women is now being imposed. If as you say, the constant interruptions of motherhood do not affect the performance of women employees then employers will continue to hire them. But given the threat of sex discrimination lawsuits and regulations, we cannot judge what is truly best for businesses at this point. They operate in an atmosphere of intimidation and propaganda. They cannot really respond to the demands of any cultural movement in favor of families and of male primacy in the workforce because they are hampered by regulations. They are now routinely accustomed to taking into superficial consideration the needs of the family. But with all that, business is actually reaping the benefits of the family’s decline.

It seems to me that you should welcome freedom from discrimination laws for business. Why should companies be forced to favor women, which is what this woman at Goldman Sachs is demanding? The standards she wants for her are not those that will be applied to men or women without children who want to take several months off at a time and who want to call in sick when they are not actually sick. Why should some employees carry the family burden for others? You would say, well, this practice is good for society and that’s the only way we can keep good employees. Well, it’s not good for society and it will eventually lead to a scarcity of good employees.

— Comments —

David writes:

There is still inequality between men and women in the workplace. That’s not a surprise. What is surprising, however, is that, in some workplaces, the pendulum of power has swung in the direction of women. When men and women work side-by-side on the job, sometimes, it is the men who are at a decided disadvantage. I’m a man, and I became a recent victim of just such a gender-related balance of power. And, ironically, men specifically brought about the imbalance and inequality. 

Imagine a situation where the men in charge at a company are so threatened by other men in the office that they discriminate against those other men in favor of the female employees. In this scenario, flirting is allowed to take place between the men in charge and the women who work for them, latitudes and concessions are only given to women, and the entire workplace is decidedly anti-male. 

Only women are allowed to “work from home because [their] child is sick” because only women are seen as the people who need to take care of children. Only women are allowed to “leave work early”, “take a sick day,” etc. In this workplace, those kinds of concessions are a woman’s prerogative. 

With men in charge, working nights and weekends is expected of other men in this office, but women are not made to adhere to the same standards. Why? Because they are women. They are coddled, nurtured, and praised by the men in charge. 

And, what if a younger woman with four months of experience is hired for the same position and same title that is occupied by an older man with 29 years of experience? And, the woman is praised constantly and held in much higher regard than the man? 

And, what if the man is fired from his job? Wouldn’t you say that, at least in this instance, the pendulum of power has, more accurately, turned into a wrecking ball?

Laura writes:

Sex discrimination will always exist in the workplace. It’s a question of whether it wil be women or men who will be discriminated against. Men and women are so radically different that accomodation to the needs of one sex automatically becomes inconsideration toward the other. What we have today is the conscious destruction of male primacy in the workplace. This leads to the unhappiness of all but the wealthy, the neglect of children and social decline.

 A reader writes:

As a nurse, few men would even want my job and most consider it “women’s work” anyways.

Laura writes:

Nursing is more than a job. It’s a sacred vocation, in a feminine way.

MarkMark writes:

If women cannot BE at work to do what they’re paid to do (move business forward), then they should not expect to be advanced the same as those who were there every day! One, they’re not helping the business make money, which is why people are hired in the first place. Two, they weren’t there getting experience, so they could help the company more. What do the expect the employer to do when faced with a promotion decision? They’re going to reward those who helped them.

Eric writes:

Your response to Maggie Fox was so smart I’m having it framed.

I think we should get 12-week (or 24-week) “commercial leave” from our families in order to make a little money here and there. Sort of puts things into perspective.

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