The motherhood PENALTY — and why it lasts for ever
It’s the book that proves working mothers are shamefully mistreated. Here, its author (who was sacked while pregnant) reveals the true price women pay for having children
LET me take you back to a younger, less jaded, far less saggy version of me. The year was 2013, and I was working on a year-long project for a children’s charity in the North-East, something I took great pride in. About a month in, I discovered I was expecting my first child and informed my employer.
The following day, they sacked me by voicemail. No reason was given. My manager, a woman, simply said my contract was being pulled and I needed to hand everything over immediately.
The shock was unfathomable. Then the terror kicked in; I had my share of the rent and bills to pay and not working meant I wouldn’t even qualify for the measly statutory maternity pay of £151 a week. I found a lawyer and sent them a letter — at a cost of £250 — demanding compensation, which they duly binned.
The only option remaining was to start legal proceedings for a tribunal, which would cost £9,000 — money I didn’t have.
The following day, at a routine hospital appointment, I discovered my cervix had almost vanished and my tiny, four-month- old baby was hanging on by a thread. After surgery, they urged me to take things easy to save my son, saying: ‘ Whatever you do, don’t get stressed.’
FORCED to choose between the health of my unborn child and accessing the justice I deserved, I dropped the case. Luckily, Theodore, now seven, was born perfectly healthy two days after his due date, but my rage at being paralysed by an unfair system grew.
Hearing the stories of other mothers who had experienced discrimination, I launched my website Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015.
There was the woman whose employer forced her to do a shot of vodka every morning to prove she wasn’t pregnant, the pregnant woman asked by her boss if she had considered an abortion. And I heard from one mum on maternity leave who received an email sent to her by mistake which said: ‘Sack her, she won’t cause a fuss, she’ll be too exhausted from caring for a newborn.’
Perhaps worst of all, I spoke to one woman who was bullied so viciously by her colleagues that she went into labour prematurely; when she was in the neonatal clinic with her baby, who could have died, her boss called and made her redundant.
I wrote my new book to highlight this shocking treatment and the price women pay throughout their career the second they decide to have a child.
Not only are 54,000 women a year pushed out of their job for daring to have a baby, but 77 per cent of working mothers experience discrimination in the workplace. Only 1 per cent of women who face this type of discrimination even raise a tribunal claim since, just like me, they find accessing any form of justice almost impossible.
For those who kick up a fuss and threaten legal action, the majority are forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a small payout. They are gagged from ever speaking publicly about the discrimination they faced.
This crisis could have been averted if Conservative MP Maria Miller’s recommendations had been adopted by the Government. She campaigned for a mother’s legal right to have her job protected for six months after her maternity leave but has been largely ignored.
At Pregnant Then Screwed, we have given legal advice to nearly 32,000 working mums who have faced discrimination since the pandemic began.
The ‘motherhood penalty’ is a term used by sociologists to describe the disadvantages mothers face in the workplace.
We’ve all heard of the gender pay gap, but the pay gap between mothers and childless women is more than that between men and women without children. Research by the International Labour Office found that in the UK, the pay gap between mothers with two children and non-mothers is 25 per cent across their lifetime.
As for the gender pay gap, by the time a woman’s first child is 12 years old, her hourly pay rate is 33 per cent behind a man’s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
We have the second most expensive childcare system in the world resulting in one in three mums paying to go to work. Understandably, many feel forced to walk away from their career. The system is rigged to drive women back to the kitchen sink.
Speaking of which, women do so much more housework and childcare than men that many take on part-time work — paid on average £5 less an hour — to cope. And then we wonder why a married woman’s pension pot is, on average, £186,000 lower than a man’s.
But it’s not as if dads are just shirking their responsibilities. Shared parental leave is so badly cobbled together, only 2 per cent of dads use it; and even when dads ask for flexible working, it is much more likely their employer will refuse. One dad I spoke to was told by his boss: ‘So you’re going to be playing mum for three months? Shall I buy you a dress?’
None of this makes sense morally or economically. The cost of living largely requires two salaries for the average family household. In 2015–16, 43 per cent of children living with one working parent and one non-working parent were in relative income poverty, compared with 11 per cent of children in twoearner households.
Women deserve to have children and a career, just as men do. Men deserve to spend more time with their children. Isn’t it time we created a society where both parents are enabled to share in the challenges and rewards of raising children and developing a career?
The pandemic gives us the chance to reset, to reflect on what is important. Let’s seize this chance to truly level up the playing field of parenthood.
■ PREGNANT then Screwed by Joeli Brearley is published by Simon & Schuster Ltd, £14.99. © Joeli Brearley 2021. to order a copy for £13.19, go to mailshop. co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Delivery charges may apply. Free UK delivery on orders over £20. Offer price valid until March 11, 2021.
‘ The system is rigged to push mums work’ out of