Traister cites a study by "University of Massachusetts sociologist Michelle Budig [who] has found that, on average, an American woman’s earnings decrease by 4 percent for every child that she bears." Easy solution: require that all American women become sociologists.
Her problem with the Family and Medical Leave Act is that it "merely protects her job for twelve weeks of unpaid leave, and then, only if she has worked at her company for at least a year." One year is the "baseline period." A one-year baseline period is also required to qualify for unemployment benefits. And that only covers employees who are unemployed through "no fault of their own." Becoming pregnant is often volitional.
She says she finds herself "cringing at the use of 'disability insurance' by some companies in some states as a means to patch together paid time off." This represents a type of feminism, "protectionist feminism," that she claims to usually views with aversion. Her very next example is of UPS worker Peggy Young, who became pregnant, was advised by her doctor to only accept light duties, and was placed on unpaid leave.
I don't feel that Peggy Young was treated with perfect fairness. But to afford her protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act is not right, either. Traister seems to think ADA protection is warranted, though, writing that "Young’s co-workers who had been injured on the job were protected from this kind of treatment by the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was not."
Traister laments the difficulty of waiting tables "when suddenly you’re hit by a wave of fatigue so intense that it feels as if your bones may have melted." Remind me to ask the captain of my next flight whether she is pregnant.
Traister comments that we live "in a country that venerates motherhood but in practice accords it zero economic value." Wrong. The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit cost taxpayers almost $90 billion in 2013. That doesn't count untaxed benefits like TANF, WIC, and Medicaid.
She's suspicious about companies like Google, Apple, Reddit, and Facebook, who have instituted "paid leave for mothers and fathers, but also baby bonuses, child care credits, subsidized fertility treatments, and egg-freezing." What, no sperm freezing? She claims many Americans are anxious about this because "incentives [may be] part of a plan to lure workers into becoming capitalist tech drones?" How many times can Rebecca Traister change her mind - sexist trigger warning missing - in a single article?
"The United States and its corporate structures were built with one kind of worker—frankly, with one kind of citizen—in mind. That citizen wage-earner was a white man." Inevitably invoking white male supremacy in a feminist argument must be some kind of Progressive "Godwin's Law."
"This weakness, she writes, is being addressed by employers faster than it is being addressed by Congress, [and] contributes to the widening of the class chasm." Opinion disguised as fact, and appeal to authority. The very last thing we need is more regulation of the workplace. Our workers must compete with workers all over our interconnected world. Why hamstring employers by making it yet more expensive to add a female labor input?
Speaking of competition, Traister includes a graph that helps visualize disparities in the way different countries compensate pregnant women. Entitled, How Does The U.S. Compare To Other Countries In Guaranteed Paid Maternity Leave? I was very surprised that the usual 'social democratic' nations of Western Europe were not included. When a Progressive argues that the U.S. is behind another country, in infant mortality or universal health care, they always compare us to Denmark or Finland or Sweden.
But this list is topped by Russia, followed by Lithuania, and not far behind them, Japan. There is a very good reason these countries are subsidizing pregnancy. They are all in demographic death spirals. They all face the inverted pyramid, in which the benefits of the elderly are being shouldered by fewer and fewer young workers. Their birthrate has fallen so far below replacement level, that they would put female libido compounds in the water supply if they thought it would work.
Right below Lithuania are Greece and Turkey. I wouldn't want to be a citizen of either country right now. Greece is in an economic death spiral, and will be defaulting within two years. Turkey is turning away from secularism, and turning toward sharia law. I don't think Rebecca would want her daughter to grow up in Turkey.
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