Have you experienced "Maternal Profiling"?

Filed under: Moms, Working out of home, Working moms, FeminismYou might be thinking to yourself, "What's maternal profiling?" According to that New York Times article on hot new words and catchphrases of 2007, maternal profiling is defined as "Employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children." I had written about my experience with this in the past, but didn't know that Moms Rising came up with an official catchphrase for it. Some Googling lead me to this post by Kristin and then this article written by a blogger I had the great honour of meeting once: Cooper Munroe. It turns out that in some states it is legal for a potential employer to ask you whether you are married and have children, and then use that information when making their ultimate hiring decision.Cooper writes, "The "bottom line," it appears, is a key factor when employers discriminate against mothers, driven by a belief that health benefits (if there are any) could cost the employer more if a spouse doesn't have insurance or if the woman is single, or that mothers are less productive."In Canada, maternal profiling isn't so blatantly obvious because it's illegal. In fact, we have fantastic health and maternal benefits, as well as other key rights that Moms Rising is campaigning for in the States. Instead it happens in subtler ways, such as getting passed over for a big project or promotion. While this is also illegal in Canada, it's often difficult to prove and most women don't want to rock the job boat.Aside from the fact that we're often tired and sometimes have to take days off to attend to sick kids, most moms I know are the hardest workers on the block. 40-60 hour workweeks, sometimes more, and then a full load of housework and childrearing. At a conference on motherhood I attended a while back, author Ann Crittenden compared the skill set acquired by parenting to those of highly skilled CEOs.If we continue to punish working women for having (or desiring to have) children, what kind of world will this be a generation from now? Have you ever experienced maternal profiling?Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments