OOOh, hear the hate mail flying in for the title, but allow me to explain. First of all, I am a woman. I am also a business owner. I am not an ultraconservative fundamentalist Christian or Muslim that thinks women should be relegated to having babies and making their men happy. Any who know me personally, know that.
I have no children. It was a conscious decision, made easy by the readily available forms of birth control available to each and every woman in this country. I could also make this decision because the social atmosphere makes it ‘OK’ to choose this path. I applaud those who have had children and are raising them. I am sure the rewards will be far more than anything money can buy.
So, why don’t some women deserve equal pay? I think we all agree that women want equal pay for equal work. That’s a given. Consider this, a woman of child bearing years makes a decision to have a child–and it is a decision. Birth control and abortion are available to everyone. Maybe there are some nuts forcing women to have babies, but I am betting you they don’t work. So, she decides to have a baby. When she becomes pregnant, her doctor is going to make all sorts of recommendations for her health and the health of the baby. Depending on the job she has, this can severely limit her activities at work. She may not be able to lift over 10 lbs, she may have to take frequent breaks to put her feet up. This does not make her lazy, it’s just what an employer has to work around. The employer is not permitted to let her go, even though she is not nearly as productive as she once was. The employer will likely have to spend money to get someone additional to make up her workload. Once again, fact, not supposition. The employer also needs to train someone to be ready to take over that job at any time–pregnancy is not always predictable. Once again, costs the company more money. When she has the baby, federal mandates allow for up to 6 weeks maternity leave. Now the company does not have to pay her, but has to pay her replacement, who is probably not as well trained, and thus less productive. This costs the company money. Once she returns to work, she has a lot more stress–the baby WILL get sick. She will want time off to take the baby to the doctor, time off for many things to do with the baby. This doesn’t make her a bad person, but it does make her a less valuable employee in many situations. If she has a computer job where she can make up time and still be just as productive, bravo, but that is not how most jobs work. Most jobs require a physical presence at the workplace.
So, women of child bearing years, who plan to become pregnant are not only not as valuable to a company due to lost time, but cost the company money. And they are saying they deserve equal pay? What does that mean, equal pay? Does it mean the same pay per hour, or the same pay per year? Obviously, it would be grossly unfair to pay a woman who went through a pregnancy the same yearly salary as a man or woman who did not. If that is the case, it will breed resentment from both the men and women who have not had children, and rightly so.
Equal pay should always have an asterisk that says for equal work. Yes, if you work the same as a man, you should be paid the same as a man. The fact is this, however, many work aged woman are also in their child bearing years and want to have at least one child. This may make them less valuable to the company. Is the decision to have a child bad? Of course not, but it’s not and never should be a decision made without considering the financial ramifications. Kids are expensive, pregnancy is expensive. Should those people who decided NOT to have children really be expected to subsidize everyone that wants children? Of course we already do with WIC and other programs, but now are we to pay them regardless of whether they perform up to the standards of the best employees in the firm?
From personal experience, I know how inconvenient it is to have pregnant people working for me. In every instance, I hired someone for a job who was not pregnant or who said they weren’t, and they then went on to get pregnant. I run a very small company. I cannot afford to hire extra people just to cover for someone else who wants to do something that takes them away from work. It means less for those employees I have that don’t miss work. And what about the poor person that gets hired to cover the maternity leave? Just kick them out when the other says she is ready to come back. Well that sucks. Have you ever had to fire someone? Even if they are bad employees, you still feel bad firing them.
Women need to understand that the choice to have children is a choice. It will come with a financial cost, one that is probably totally worth the lost money, but at a cost none the less. Nothing is free, nor should it be. People need to be responsible and pay for the choices they make. It may mean you do not make as much as a man, and you may think that is unfair, but really calculate how much you make and factor in any extra time off, benefits paid, etc and see if you aren’t really making as much or more than many men in the workplace. Pregnancy and child bearing are not constitutional rights, they are life choices. Plan for it, consider what you will have to sacrifice to have a child. Having a child comes with sacrifice, as I said before, probably all the sacrifices pay off big time. Don’t expect the world to make up for your personal sacrifices. Accept that once you have a child you life has changed. Also accept the fact that it is usually the woman who bears the brunt of it. That’s life and life is not always fair. Just because life isn’t fair doesn’t mean it can’t be good. If you have everything you need, is it really so important to be paid what someone else is making? You will drive yourself insane comparing your income to others’ . There will always be someone out there that makes more, man or woman.