Pregnancy and discrimination
The Tasmanian Sex Discrimination Commission's annual report, released earlier this month, reveals that complaints of sexual discrimination increased by 80% in the last year. Twenty-three percent of the complaints related to discrimination based on pregnancy.
Discrimination against pregnant workers is usually couched in terms of occupational health and safety, and concern for the welfare of the foetus and mother-to-be. Pregnant women are considered more vulnerable and incapable than other workers.
The report identified the hospitality industry as the one of the worst offenders. In this industry, as in many others, women are constantly "on display" — waiting on tables, serving drinks, attending to customers' comforts and needs.
Many bars, cafes and restaurants overtly use sex to attract customers (especially men); for example, the Hooters restaurant chain which employs women with large breasts to wear tight-fitting tops emblazoned with the Hooters logo.
The more subtle use of women's sexual allure and appearance is central to the functioning of many other industries. Women's bodies are used to market every consumer product imaginable, to tantalise and feed both men's and women's cravings for fulfilling lives and relations with each other.
A pregnant woman is no longer useful in jobs which rely on the illusion and innuendo of sexual availability and satisfaction.
The importance of a woman's physical appearance is elevated to the point where it defines how she feels about herself, and how others relate to her. Many pregnant women describe being made to feel fat and unattractive, even elephant-like.
Pregnant women just don't fit the image stereotypes that businesses want. Although women have entered the work force in unprecedented numbers over the last 50 years, the assumption remains that women must meet the media-imposed ideals of beauty and total devotion to their job/boss if they are to be valued and successful. That pretty much rules out being pregnant.
Pregnant women playing a major role in the public sphere also contradicts the powerful ideology of motherhood under capitalism. That ideology still defines child-bearing and -rearing as the "private" duties of women: duties which, while deemed to be of absolute importance for women to personally fulfilled, are neither valued nor supported in corporate or government policy.
Encouraging pregnant women's active participation in public life and treating them no differently to others in the workplace would undermine that private "specialness" of motherhood.
By Sarah Stephen