Don’t watch with mother! Maternity leave gets Fatal Attraction treatment
IT’S the sensational new drama that’s set to do for maternity leave what Fatal Attraction did for adultery.
The Replacement is sure to be must-see viewing – particularly for working mothers-to-be – as it aims to reflect the grim reality faced by many pregnant women in the work place.
The three-part BBC series stars Vicky McClure as Paula, an architect taken on by a firm to replace Ellen (Morven Christie), who is due to go on maternity leave.
As Ellen shows Paula the ropes, the two women find themselves jostling for power – and heading for a jaw-dropping cliffhanger. While the series features several incendiary plot lines, experts last night said the real stresses of maternity leave are comparable with any fictional drama.
Figures from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) reveal the number of maternity and pregnancy discrimination claims soared by 31 per cent last year.
According to Joeli Brearley, founder of maternity support website Pregnant Then Screwed, about two-thirds of pregnant women are mistreated. She said: ‘Ellen’s fears in the TV show are very valid. About 54,000 women lose their jobs for getting pregnant, and 77 per cent of working mothers endure discrimination in the workplace.
‘I told my employers I was four months pregnant and they sacked me two days later.’
In one case, a woman with severe morning sickness was told by her boss she was spending too much time away from her desk. She was ordered to throw up in a designated bin – in front of 60 colleagues in an openplan office.
Another woman was bullied so badly that she went into labour prematurely. While she was in a hospital with her sick 26-week-old baby, her boss phoned to tell her he was making her redundant.
Manchester-based employment solicitor Danielle Ayres praised the BBC show but warned: ‘You’ve already got people who think, “Oh God, she’s pregnant, she wants the earth.”’
In the 1987 Hollywood film Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close played an obsessed woman trying to usurp a wife after having an affair with the woman’s husband, played by Michael Douglas.
The Replacement starts on February 28 on BBC1.