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Comment by latch | Hacker News Reader

This isn't something I've said out loud often. However, if I had my own small startup, I'd be worried about hiring young women for one reason: maternity leave.

Now, this obviously depends on where you're setting up your startup. However, if I lived in a place where a long[ish] (6+months) maternity leave was the law, I'd be pretty worried about newly hired women going on maternity leave. For a large company, it isn't a big problem, but for a small cash-strapped company, losing a significant % of your workforce for an extended period of time sucks.

I've known women who went back to work, or switched to a job with better benefits, because they planned on getting pregnant. And I've known some who just happened to get pregnant shortly after getting a new job.

I strongly believe that the length of maternity leave should be proportional to the length of time at the company.

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>This isn't something I've said out loud often. However, if I had my own small startup, I'd be worried about hiring young women for one reason: maternity leave.

IANAL but (in America, anyway) it's a good thing to never say out loud: it's completely illegal. You may not discriminate hiring on the basis of gender, and if any female applicant who got turned down for a job at your small startup in the future and dug up this post... well, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.

The variable on which he's trying to discriminate for hiring is not, strictly speaking, gender. He wants to discriminate on the likelihood of an employee missing an extended amount of work time in the wake of a voluntary* personal choice. For a company to want to avoid that is quite reasonable. But of course, pregnancy correlates very highly to gender, so the execution of such a policy ends up functionally indistinguishable from actual gender discrimination.

(*we're not here to debate the fine points of when contraception measures fail.)

Which is a real shame, because then we can't have an open and honest conversation about it without fear of litigation.

Of course, there isn't a lack of countries where maternity leave isn't long, so I can always set up shop there and make the choice I want with respect to maternity leave benefits..

IANAL as well, but as far as I understand it's completely legal to say "I don't want to hire women". Yay freedom of speech. However, If I am hiring people (which I'm not and never done) and reject a woman based on the fact that she is a woman, and she can somehow prove it, then yes.. I risk being sued.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

you are wrong...even with freedom of association upheld as a key part of the first amendment, discrimination based on race, gender, age (and more) is simply not allowed.

Section 1981 of Title 42 of the United States Codes (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/1981.html) which protect people from being discriminated against has been upheld.

RTFM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#United_States

"Laws prohibiting hate speech are unconstitutional in the United States, outside of obscenity, defamation, incitement to riot, and fighting words."

Which means if I say "women are all stupid" I should be able to avoid getting sued because of the 1st amendment.

If, however, I decline a job position because someone is female, and she or someone else will be able to _prove it in the fucking court_, then I will be guilty of violating the law in your link.

Do you or do you not see the difference between saying "man, I'd really like to punch someone right now", "I would like to punch >you< in the head", and actually punching somebody in the head?

First is just a general statement, second is a threat, third is violence.

Again, if I say "I don't want to hire women" and then go ahead and employ a woman just because I need an employee and she's qualified, I'm fine in terms of the law. It's similar to me saying "hey, I'd really wish I could rob a bank right now" and then obediently following the law and not robbing a bank.

Please do not step on my freedom of speech in the future.

It's why I think all the maternity leaves should be paid by state and insured by state, not by company, otherwise it will cause such hidden discrimination. And I'm in favor of longer maternity leaves (at least one year) otherwise kids will not be breastfeed and it might cause health problems later. Having healthy new generation is in interest of the entire society so the society should pay for it.

This. I get that "potential mothers are unemployable" is a huge problem we can and should avoid, but this shouldn't have been an unfunded mandate with costs and risks solely burdening new mothers' current employers. That gives management a big incentive to find excuses not to hire them, and penalizes the ones who do what we assert is the right thing.

I'd like to see a right to maternity leave balanced by an obligation to return to work afterwards. It's unreasonable for a company to hold a position open only to find that the employee in question not actually want it, or want to change it significantly (e.g. from full to part-time).

What's stopping men from also taking leave to raise a kid?

I support paternity leave for this reason. It'll make businesses worry less about only women having a kid.

In general, men don't take anywhere near as much leave time as women.

Even in Sweden, where the government strongly encourages men to take paternity leave, men take only 1/3 of all leave days. (The couple gets 330 days of leave to share and the father gets 60 days only he can use.) Germany has an even lower ratio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden....

Paternity leave is much, much shorter.

If paternity leave were equal, ie gender equality, then there would be less of an issue for small companies hiring people in a certain age window, they'd get screwed either way.

Personally I think the idea of men and women being equal is pure idiocy. I can't give birth or breast feed children for a start. But if you want equality you can't do it by halves.

So, not "equal" then?

Breast feeding naturally goes on for at least a year. Yes milk can be expressed but this is detrimental to the bond between mother and child. I guess if you want equality you don't want that special bond. Yes women can work in some places with their children present to feed them, but this is hardly commonly allowed.

FWIW from 6 months of age my Wife and I shared domestic duties, daytime child care and work equally. We run our own business and take it in turns leading with the business and leading with the household. We share the load equally but we certainly bring different aspects to both work and home roles.

What does giving birth and breast feeding have to do with anything? After the first few weeks both parents are equally capable of looking after the child.

breast feeding goes on a lot longer than "the first few weeks".

I'm a stay-at-home dad. I'm pretty good at it. But there are things my wife can do that I can't.

Breast feeding goes on for as long as you want it to go on. I'm certainly not advocating against breast feeding, if you're medically capable to do it, enjoy it, and can fit it into your schedule then by all means breast feed away, I'm even cool with you doing it public.

However using it as THE reason for mothers not going back to work and having the father stay at home is simply archaic.

You're not advocating against breast feeding, you just don't think the choice to breastfeed is a legitimate reason for the mother to be the one to stay at home? That's some double-talk there.

You shouldn't need any legitimate reason beyond "I want to" to stay at home with your kid. My point is that it is perfectly reasonable to raise a kid with out breastfeeding during the day and breastfeeding should not be used as an argument to guilt or coerce women into staying at home when they'd rather go back to work.

Breastfeeding is better for the mother and child. Choosing not to is like choosing not to give your child a decent diet. The WHO strongly advocate breastfeeding for a minimum of 12 months.

Women don't need to try to breastfeed unless they want to raise children.

If you want to be "equal to a man" then don't bear children. Simples.

Choosing not to is like choosing not to give your child a decent diet.

Every pediatric doctor I've spoken to on the subject disputes this as outdated. The only cases where this still holds true is in places where there is limited access to modern baby formula and clean water.

breastfeeding should not be used as an argument to guilt or coerce women into staying at home when they'd rather go back to work

I don't see anyone doing that. All I see is the notion that breastfeeding is a reason why, on aggregate, mothers choose to stay at home longer than fathers.

If anything, I'm reading your attitude as a way to guilt and coerce mothers into going back to work when they'd rather stay at home.

> "Breast feeding goes on for as long as you want it to go on."

Yes -- and a lot of people want it to go on for the first year or so, because it's far and away healthier than formula. Ergo, a lot of mothers take more time off work than fathers do.

Even among women who choose to go back to work, many do it only part time, because of the added time commitment of breastfeeding or pumping. This is something a stay-at-home dad simply can't replace; infant formula is a sad substitute.

In California, family leave is paid for by the state, not your company.

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