Throwaway for obvious reasons... I worked in a small tech company headed by a conservative religious CEO (may or may not be relevant, who's to say?), which was

Throwaway for obvious reasons... I worked in a small tech company headed by a conservative religious CEO (may or may not be relevant, who's to say?), which was fine, he didn't really talk much about religion, and we just learned never to mention politics. I never had a bad review, made PRs every day, kept my head down, had been working there for three years. When I got engaged, I didn't really talk about it -- they had stopped replacing engineers who left the company and I knew they were going through a rough patch, financially, and it seemed like it would be a bad thing to bring up. The cat was out of the bag when I requested vacation for a honeymoon. The next calendar month, I was let go (they did it so that I would get insurance through the rest of the month). The HR person (the only other woman in the company) actually said "Now you have more time to plan your wedding" and "You still have your husband's salary" Maybe she didn't realize what she said was questionable, maybe she figured they were giving me a good severance package so it didn't matter (not like I could turn around and sue them), but it was still upsetting. My husband is a social worker who only makes $40k/year, and we live in a city with a high cost of living. So, not a great consolation. Fortunately, in addition to severance, my direct manager was apologetic and gave me a great review, and I was able to find a new job with a 40% raise within two weeks -- even while "planning my wedding"! (Also, the old company's doing fine now, judging from LinkedIn) But yes, women often do get winnowed out, even today. At my company, we had to decide who to let go in a remote office and one of my co-workers made the comment "so and so has a family to support." I talked to him about it later and he acknowledged that I made a good point, and he hadn't thought about it like that. But that's the thing -- when managers are trying to "do the right thing" they can often be reluctant to let go of men who they perceive as breadwinners, and women are sometimes seen as making "extra income" for their families. They may view married women as needing the job less than a single woman or a married man. It may or may not even a conscious thing, and it may happen with less frequency today, but it's still occasionally a problem. On another note: It's also a problem (IMO, a larger one) that women tend to drop out of the workforce on their own accord during the ages of 20-35, when they have children. My husband and I are trying for a family so I'm currently facing this issue, and my husband plans to quit his job and stay home with the kids while I go back after maternity leave. I admit, it would be a lot easier if we could just go with the social flow and the genders were reversed here. People would automatically know that I was the male breadwinner, I'd have a wife at home like most other men with families in the company, I wouldn't have to take three months of for biological reasons. But I LOVE my career, and it is what it is. We'll figure it out, but I understand why a lot of women don't want to, or may be dissuaded from putting themselves in that situation early in their careers/relationships altogether.