6 ms·

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 live

by sweden 9y ago

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.

tomc1985 9y ago
There is a lot that American business culture could and should learn from Europe
jtmcmc 9y ago
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)
sampo 9y ago
> they would highlight the country where they are writing them from If people don't mention their country, they're American.
wu_tang_chris 9y ago
it's pretty safe to assume they're talking about the US. quit whining.
strictfp 9y ago
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.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  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.
  - carlob 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
      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.
rconti 9y ago
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 9y ago
  > 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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
gowld 9y ago
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.
thm76 9y ago
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.

by sweden 9y ago

tomc1985 9y ago

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

jtmcmc 9y ago

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)

sampo 9y ago

> they would highlight the country where they are writing them from If people don't mention their country, they're American.

wu_tang_chris 9y ago

it's pretty safe to assume they're talking about the US. quit whining.

strictfp 9y ago

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.

TomMarius 9y ago
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.
- carlob 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
    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.

rconti 9y ago

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 9y ago
> 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 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.

gowld 9y ago

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.

thm76 9y ago

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.