Egg Freezing: A Sign Your Workplace Is a Dystopian HellHole

http://huntgatherlove.com/content/egg-freezing-sign-your-workplace-dystopian-hellhole

by rubikscube • 12 years ago

67 80 12 years ago

reuven2• 12 years ago

I read about this new benefit over the weekend, and my reaction was extremely negative. It seems like a great way for companies to force young women to work harder and put their family plans on hold, in favor of the company. I can easily imagine a situation in which this benefit will be used to force women to choose between advancing their careers ("why not freeze your eggs, and have children later?") and starting or expanding a family.

Part of the problem here would seem to be that the US still lags behind the rest of the world in maternity leave. If the government were to mandate that companies let women take off from work, and then return to their jobs without penalty, it would result in a level playing field, and a sense (among women) that they don't have to choose.

Actually, that's not entirely true: In Israel, where I live, there is government-mandated maternity leave with decent benefits, and women still find it hard to compete. It's not unusual for potential employers to (illegally) ask women how old they are, when they plan to have children, or how many children they plan to have. So even with such a benefit in place, things are still tough for women in the workplace.

I should add that I'm male and the owner of a small (currently 3-person) company. I have hired women before, and see having children as something to be encouraged and integrated into the business lifecycle, rather than ignored.

myhf• 12 years ago

Maternity leave makes it more expensive for a company to hire a woman than a man with equivalent family plans. Paternity leave is also necessary to make progress against sexism.

reuven2• 12 years ago

Israeli law says that men may take paternity leave. My brother-in-law did so when his youngest daughter was born. I wish all countries had such laws.

That said, I think it's a bit short-sighted to say that maternity leave is a "special privilege" for women. Women are the only ones (so far as I know) who can have children, and we do (I think) want to encourage employees to have them.

Maternity leave isn't a special privilege. It's an acknowledgment that women give birth, and that they also can contribute to a company's success, and that they shouldn't have to choose between the two.

verroq• 12 years ago

Exactly, by giving women special privileges, it makes it more optimal to just not hire them.

However, it won't equalise until you have completely broken traditional gender roles.

Until it's completely socially acceptable for men to stay at home and take care of kids, it will still be more optimal to hire men who have a lesser chance of taking paternity leave.

radicalbyte• 12 years ago

Absolutely.

Men should have the right (and should be forced to take it) to the same level of paternity leave as women.

That will instantly level the playing field, and make the first three months of parenthood a pleasure instead of the pain that it is when having to work..

EDIT: my wife just pointed out that this will never work. Unlike women, men can father in parallel..

fleitz9• 12 years ago

Most reasonable countries have paternity leave that gives the exact same benefits as maternity leave.

yummyfajitas10• 12 years ago

"Sexism" is an odd word to use. Normally the term implies some sort of (non-productivity based) distaste for women or bias against believing they will be productive.

In this situation companies have no particular opinion about women - they only want employees who will remain productive. Women are simply less productive, due to exiting the workforce. There is neither distaste nor bias.

Could you explain what definition you are using for "sexism" in your comment?

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

The couple should be allocated some large number of days which they can choose to divide between them in any way they want. This is how it works in many scananavian countries, and I think a similar system was recently introduced in the UK too.

polskibus• 12 years ago

Maternity leave is paid by the government not by the employer in all the countries I heard it exists in.

x0x07• 12 years ago

protip: working for facebook or apple is voluntary

also, google offers 6 months of fully paid -- they top up what CA gives you -- maternity leave; I know they offer paternity leave but I don't know details

fb apparently offers 4 months [1]

apple is less generous [2]

[1] http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/parental-leave-pol...

[2] http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/02/memo-apple-hr-head-denise-youn...

fleitz9• 12 years ago

Wow, thats like almost what everyone is entitled to in most industrialized countries!

What a great company to work for!

anonymoushn2• 12 years ago

I recently learned that a certain tech company will delay your vesting while you are on maternity leave.

x0x07• 12 years ago

Why should you vest when you aren't working?

anonymoushn2• 12 years ago

Is this a common practice?

raspie• 12 years ago

Having children when it's least risky (before 30) should be possible without career suicide. To accomplish that, government must mandate more generous maternity leave policies. Companies aren't going to be nice by themselves. They have competitors to undercut and work to be done.

fleitz9• 12 years ago

It is, I had kids at 22.

Protip: Don't work at companies where they can't get their shit together enough to accomplish a days work in 8 hours, preferably 6.

raquo2• 12 years ago

I'm not very familiar with mandated maternity leave rules in the US, but I believe it's less generous than in other developed countries, similar to how vacation time is not mandated in the US. For reference, mandated minimum in the EU is 4 weeks of paid vacation per year.

What I'm saying is, good for you that you found a decent employer, but most employers are not that nice, and have no reason to be, given current regulations.

jeangenie2• 12 years ago

Remarkably lucid analysis of one potential motive behind such programs.

To play devil's advocate, programs like this could arguably lead to higher earning power for women as they get older by keeping them engaged in competitive labor markets for longer periods (years, potentially more than a decade) without gaps necessitated by childbirth. It's totally plausible this is a confounding variable in the gender wage gap phenomenon.

This isn't an endorsement of the argument but a sleazy person could easily mount that defense and immediately have a parade thrown in their honor.

fleitz9• 12 years ago

Which wage gap? The 30% one from 30 years ago that doesn't account for job type?

The 2% one from a few years ago that accounts for job type?

Or the -2% from last year that shows that women under 30 actually make more than men when you account for job type?

jeangenie2• 12 years ago

You are arguing with the facetious reasoning in a cynical and hypothetical example of a perverse argument for a program I acknowledge I disagree with.

That's a long way of saying I'm already aware of what you're saying. That was the point.

brandonmenc• 12 years ago

It's not like they're offering egg freezing in lieu of maternity leave, of which Apple offers around 5 months.

x0x07• 12 years ago

Apple's benefits appear not to be as generous as google's; most of that leave is unpaid according to http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/02/memo-apple-hr-head-denise-youn...

jonchang• 12 years ago

So Facebook is paying for egg freezing to discourage young, productive employees from starting a family. But then it also offers 4 months paid paternal and maternal leave, as well as a $4k cash bonus to new parents, and subsidized childcare. Seems like a bad strategy on their part if that's their ultimate goal.

kashkhan• 12 years ago

If the freezing option is available, the system will tag the women who start families as not seriously committed to the job. That's the real intent.

In my previous job the manager liked to say that he needed to find out who of us were the chickens and who were the pigs. That is to make breakfast breakfast the chicken contributes and pig commits. Anything less than full commitment results in retribution from the company.

marak8302• 12 years ago

How have we gone from an employment systerm where you are performing an action either unable(due to time or skills) or unwilling todo in return for money, to a system of slaving yourself for a company?

Id almost understand from a business poibt of view (which i have been in for the record), but also the people you are hiring are humans, and have a life to live and are trading one commodity for another (their time, your required work).

Now the article doesnt specificly target this(i am going off on a tangent i realise), but the amount of, disconnectrd with reality(for want of a better term) lately strikes me a lot, (also puts me atop my high horse as it were).

TLDR: Why are we treating staff as a commodity, not a valuable resource while realising it might not be forever and that they also have a life to live.

marak8302• 12 years ago

Mandate that men as well as women get x amount of time off for the birth of a child. No more negative effect for women vs men in this regard( and personally i dont see any reason for a sex based bias for hiring. At all).

Edit: for fat thumbs and mobile device.

swartkrans• 12 years ago

I flagged this article not because of the actual article, but because of the discussion here which has turned pretty negative and sordid. The anti-american comments and politics are a huge turn off.

goombastic2• 12 years ago

Spot on.

When companies indirectly demand that you put your personal life on hold for them, you know they have gone too far. What next? Employment contracts that stipulate no pregnancy because they offer egg freezing?

This kind of contract creep and rights erosion is already happening for things like non-compete agreements where employees sign off the right to get gainful employment elsewhere when it makes sense to do so. It just feels like slavery is creeping back up on us.

We live about 80-90 years, I don't think the present culture of slaving your ass off for an app while missing out on all of life is worth it.

GolfyMcG• 12 years ago

Could you please find somewhere that includes "companies indirectly demanding that you put your personal life on hold for them" in writing? I might be missing it but appears they just have the option to do this procedure.

goombastic2• 12 years ago

Wont be long before they mandate it.

throwack• 12 years ago

This is actually a smart solution to a huge biological problem.

1) Women have huge downtimes in their child-rearing years. This equates as women being more expensive for the same amount of work for that (short) period of time. This cannot be ignored.

2) Companies wont hire more expensive people just of good will if not forced to do so.

3) Companies won't hire women after child-rearing age. Also they won't hire old men, because they are more expensive and work less. No sexism here, we all get fucked equally.

4) Playing field cannot be made equal for both sexes. Men cannot be given the same paternity leave rights as women, because a man can easily abuse the paternity leave by simply fathering childrens very often, or claiming a child is theirs, something a woman cannot easily do as a pregnancy is very hard to fake. Maybe Google can do it, or Facebook. But think of a blue-collar factory. Can't do it.

You can protest for social justice all you want. It won't happen anytime soon.

notacoward• 12 years ago

If somebody developed a drug that allowed people to go without sleep indefinitely, without immediate cognitive impairment, these companies would offer that too. It would be "voluntary" of course, but people who went without would have a hard time advancing or even getting good reviews when they're compared vs. the sleepless. Then we'd probably hear ten years down the road about how the companies were quietly finding excuses to let people go before the long-term health effects kicked in.

Isn't it great that these cutting-edge companies can offer such empowering choices to their workers?

ASneakyFox• 12 years ago

I think you're the only person who didn't incorrectly identify the egg freezing thing as sexist.

mikepalmer• 12 years ago

How about difficult teenagers? Can we freeze them until we have time to deal with them??

Egg Freezing: A Sign Your Workplace Is a Dystopian HellHole

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