[sweden]

I just wish that when people talk about these stories, they would highlight the country where they are writing them from.

As someone living in Europe (who lived and worked in one of more country), some of these "cultural" aspects against a certain gender feel so much out of place. In particular, expecting someone who is pregnant to quit the job is just unthinkable. Most engineering work places in Europe expect the person to take paternity/maternity leave and take care of the children but the job will be secured.

I'm not saying that gender descrimination doesn't happen in Europe but I feel that the US have a lot of more of these extreme and ridiculous scenarios.

[rconti]

As a male in a professional industry in the US, it's also unthinkable to expect someone who is pregnant to quit their job.

But apparently it happens.

These stories wouldn't get the attention they're getting if they weren't shocking to many (men?). So I'd be careful of believing too strongly that it's that different where you are just because you don't see it.

[nvahalik]

> But apparently it happens. > These stories wouldn't get the attention they're getting if they weren't shocking to many (men?). So I'd be careful of believing too strongly that it's that different where you are just because you don't see it.

In my experience and previous industries, women getting pregnant usually means baby showers and then going away parties. Marriages not so much but considering the amount of time and care a new baby incurs it is reasonable for a new mother to desire to stay at home, bond, nurse, etc. In fact my wife normally asks that very question with she encounters an expectant mother.

[larkost]

My wife, and quite a number of friends are from Europe (Austria, Germany, and Hungary mainly), and from anecdotes from them it is fairly clear to me that, at least in hiring practices, Europe is not a better environment than the U.S. in this regard.

For example, almost every European woman I have talked to about this has been asked either outright or strongly implied whether they were likely to have kids while employed. They have usually followed up with stories of women who were denied employment because of that. In some of those cases it was just because they were in the right age range, and despite their protestation the interviewer thought that they would.

In the U.S. I have never heard of someone being asked things like that (it is specifically illegal, and easy grounds for very expensive lawsuits).

It should be said that maternity leave (especially paid portions of it) is much longer in large parts of Europe. My sister-in-law has been on paid maternity leave now for 4 years. That ended a few weeks ago, but her employer informed her that during that leave she had build up x-and-x vacation, so she decided to take that, so she has been on "vacation" now for about a month.

That huge cost may be part of the push there. For people outside the U.S.: there is no national requirement for any paid leave, but it does require 12-weeks of non-paid leave (at least for larger companies). California was the first state to require 6 weeks of partially paid leave, but I am not aware of any states that have followed suit. It also should be said that many companied have their own more-generous policies, but those are more often the larger companies, especially ones with a mostly high-skilled workforce.

[purplezooey]

The root cause of all this is that we're all competing with an infinite supply of poor Asian people on the other side of the world that will work for pennies on the dollar.

[strictfp]

Speaking as a Swede, that is not entirely true in my experience. It's still expensive for employers and they don't like hiring women who will soon be pregnant.Or their men for that matter, but those are harder to spot :) I have female friends who changed jobs just before getting pregnant or visibly pregnant, and those employers were not happy.

[crdoconnor]

>I have female friends who changed jobs just before getting pregnant or visibly pregnant, and those employers were not happy.

I have a friend whose wife did that in the UK. The employer then let her go. They sued and either won or settled (can't remember which).

I think it was for an executive type role.

[TomMarius]

Well I'm going to play the devil's advocate: How would you feel about looking for an employee for months, spending tremendous amounts of money on recruiting them, training them afterwards, only to find out that they're not going to work for you for several years and didn't even mention that, possibly messing up your financial situation, screwing up any long term planning, etc? How do you feel when someone takes an unplanned vacation (and that's just for a few weeks)?

The other cases of harassment are terrible. But I can sympathize with the managers/business owners on this one - not that I support them. I see their point.

[dragonwriter]

> Well I'm going to play the devil's advocate: How would you feel about looking for an employee for months, spending tremendous amounts of money on recruiting them, training them afterwards, only to find out that they're not going to work for you for several years and didn't even mention that, possibly messing up your financial situation, screwing up any long term planning, etc?

Were I hiring in an environment where that was a legally protected right, I'd probably work it into my hiring planning in advance, then if it was occurring more often than I had accounted for, try to evaluate whether my planning was bad.

Can't see the point in getting upset about it.

[hackerman12345]

If you planned to hire based on an immediate need, it would require you to discriminate against pregnant women though. For example, if you need someone to do x immediately for the next y months, hiring someone who you know would need leave during that would be a pretty major issue.

So maybe you could simply hire her as well as another person who would be less likely to require leave during that period, but then your payroll needs grow - not a great business decision for a startup or whatever.

I think it's easy to see how this could be a predicament for a business without extra money and "get over it" isn't a very good answer IMO - at the very least you'll have discrimination being done in disguise until there's a better answer.

[carlob]

How do you feel doesn't go into it. You probably feel like shit, granted. But we as a society have decided that it's more important that women can feel at least a little bit safer having a family as well as a career and we've regulated this so that they can be protected from losing their job.

In some more advanced countries than the US or Papua New Guinea there is even mandatory paid leave, go figure.

As an exercise you can take the pregnant woman in your example and replace with a cyclist in a bike accident or someone who was just diagnosed with cancer.

[TomMarius]

I live in one of these 'more advanced countries'. The system is bad, expensive and has many issues, but that doesn't matter for this discussion. What matters is that in these more advanced countries, for example in the one where I live, it's actually very normal to tell your manager about this so they can plan for that - and then there are no issues on either side.

BTW the paid leave is not paid by the employer, it's paid out of mandatory government insurance.

EDIT: please reply and discuss before downvoting. Downvoting adds nothing to the discussion.

[TomMarius]

Reaction to your edit with a cyclist, I have no idea how that relates to this case. That's an accident, something that no one knew will happen, and everyone understands that. On the other hand it doesn't seem nice to purposefully not tell someone information that might be extremely important to them and might even mean if they do or do not lose their business.

[PeterisP]

The position here is that it's not information that might be extremely important to them. Legally (and ethically!) this information literally can not, must not influence any of their decisions regarding that employee in any way whatsoever. What is the employer going to do if they tell them if they can't use that information or act on it? They might do something, but they should not; they likely want to do something, but they should be prevented from doing so.

In essence, the applicant has a right to demand treatment as if the employer didn't know that information. By not telling them, they're exercising that right, taking precautions so that it wouldn't be violated in a way that's illegal but hard to prove.

[TomMarius]

What? That an employee will be away for several years is not an important information? Since when?

The employee has right to be treated as if the information was unknown, I never said the opposite and never wanted to even imply that (and I'm pretty sure that I did not). That doesn't mean that the employer shouldn't have an opportunity to plan accordingly (e.g. start looking for a temporary replacement, stop accepting new projects and so on).

[carlob]

Pregnancies are not all exactly planned…

[zaarn]

And pregnancies don't happen out of the blue either.

[TomMarius]

Maternal leaves are, though.

[gowld]

You can pay for performance and offer retention bonuses if you are concerned that your employees increase in value over time until later.

[urahara]

Why do you think that women who forced to constantly experience all kinds of problems and overload because of their gender, should be concerned about well being of groups and institutions (that tend to force them into these problems) at the expense of their own safety? Maybe you imply some ideal situation in which it is totally safe for an average woman to communicate openly like you suggest, but how often is it really the case given a huge problem of sexism we are discussing here and multiple evidence of which you were just presented?

[internetman55]

Agree Let's face facts, it's stupid to care for some random company morally in that case. And let's face some more facts, even if you don't believe in morals or agree with that one, it's way more important at the societal level for women to be able to have children then for some rando company to be guaranteed a profit

[TomMarius]

That "rando company" you're talking about is most probably an ordinary citizen just like you (most businesses are sole entrepreneurs and SMBs) and that "profit" is their living, they pay their food, shelter and healthcare for their kids and themselves with that. How would you feel like if someone said these things about women? Are you aware there are woman business owners as well and how would you feel if a woman-owned small business would go under because of this; what if the woman owner is pregnant and/or recently had a child and/or is single mother? Do you realize that you're literally surrounded by businesspeople on this site - do you think they're something less? How did you get the impression that businesses are not primarily humans? How can you say these awful things about others?

There of course are some "faceless corporations", I agree, but I'm not talking about these - the cost of an employee going on a leave is a fraction of their monthly budget. But most of businesses are small and can get into serious trouble easily.

And lastly, no one is talking about guaranteeing a profit at all.

[austincheney]

Morals and opinions aren't facts. Your correlation of these works doesn't make sense.

[TomMarius]

Well as I said in another comment, I live in Europe, so it's definitely very different here.

I have several points. Let's not blame organizations for the actions of individuals (given that the organization properly deals with said individual). Let's not blame the whole industry or the whole society for the actions of individuals. If something happened to me at a conference, I won't blame my manager who is not connected to the individual that did it in any way for that - and I won't make them suffer because of that.

Of course there might be a reason to not communicate that and that's completely alright, it's business after all, but let's not make it a default choice, please - let's stay human and be nice to each other.

[urahara]

It is sad to see that even after many good explanations by other users you're in complete denial of facts that 1) normally it is dangerous for women to report openly 2) they have right to not do so 3) they are not responsible for companies's mismanagement of this possibility 4) given all this, what matters significantly more here is a woman's safety and not awareness of a company.

[TomMarius]

It is sad that after so many good explanations by me you're in complete denial of facts that

1) normally it isn't (in Europe at least), but I said that I definitely can see situations when it is (in Europe as well as elsewhere) and I never suggested nor said that there aren't any such situations or that it's negligible

2) I'm not talking about them not having a right to do so nor I'm suggesting they shouldn't; I'm saying that using this right should be properly considered before doing so instead of taking it as a default

3) Most companies (again, in Europe, but I'm pretty sure that in the USA as well) don't have any way to do anything about this mismanagement, most companies are small businesses that don't have enough money for that. Not telling them information like this will mean that they will prefer men or risk going under (because the risk of being catched illegally preferring men could be smaller than that). Do you realise that this directly contributes to pay inequality because hiring woman is more riskful than hiring a man (and no, the risk is not the maternal leave itself, the risk lies in being in a situation that you couldn't properly plan for beforehand)?

4) the business is owned by people, possibly women with exactly the same issues as well, but you suggest they don't have the same rights for safety?

I'm sorry to be rude, but did you read what I wrote? Maybe do it again, more carefully? You sound like I suggest depriving women of that right, but I explicitly said that this is not something I want to suggest.

Seems like people completely forgot that having millions of dollars in investments is not common.

[urahara]

There are no countries where the problem of sexism is solved. Maybe it is better in Europe, but it still exists everywhere and still huge. And in the most countries it is times worse. It is reasonable to protect oneself from that behavior with all legal means and it would be strange to expect anything else of a person facing high probability of being discriminated against.

[IntronExon]

Well as I said in another comment, I live in Europe, so it's definitely very different here.

As a growing number have pointed out in response to that claim, no... no it isn’t.

[sampo]

> they would highlight the country where they are writing them from

If people don't mention their country, they're American.

[thm76]

My father's former boss (in Germany) has fired women when they became pregnant and just paid the settlement when they sued. As soon as the employer becomes aware that somebody is pregnant they can't fire them and need to guarantee the position or a similar one for when they return from maternity leave.

I understand where you're coming from, but my guess would be that the situation is much more similar between the US, Europe and other countries than you think.

[gowld]

Are you sure? USA has more of a culture of speaking out about problems instead of hushing up about them. And one of the points of the OP article is that even in the USA, men don't understand how common these stories are, because they aren't paying attention.

[jtmcmc]

this is in part due to the lack of legal requirements around parental leave in the US (don't think that I'm apologizing for this behavior - but I do think that is one contributing factor)

[tomc1985]

There is a lot that American business culture could and should learn from Europe