OT RE: "Sorry if it seems old fashioned to you."
Hi Jozef,
You may have assumed that my comment, "You also incorrectly assumed that the woman (not the man) should be the one to stay home in the case of providing care. That's an extremely old-fashioned and outdated assumption", was a reference to nursing (which you mentioned).
However, it was not. So, let me restate what I said in a way which helps make my meaning clearer:
It isn't right for any employer to jump to conclusions and to make certain business decisions based upon assumptions about women in the workforce as it pertains to their "assumed" role in parenthood. To be specific by way of a particular example: it is not right for an employer to make business assumptions based upon gender, like assume a woman will stay at home, give up her career, to raise a child. Why automatically assume the father isn't providing care? I know of some stay-at-home fathers who are great care-takers (which doesn't imply the mother isn't nursing/providing care).
I know of one person whose distant employer incorrectly assumed that a pregnant female employee was going to quit her job in order to stay at home in order to raise the child, when in fact, her husband is a stay-at-home Dad.
On a separate note, I find it interesting that none of my male entrepreneur friends were asked the type of personal questions I was grilled on, like, "do you have children? what are your family plans? if you were to get pregnant, what would your plans be?" I answered all the questions because I believe in open, frank communication with investors, however, when I discovered none of my male entrepreneur friends were asked these types of questions, it gave me the impression I was treated differently because of my gender. Were certain concerns made on the basis of my gender?
Nonetheless, back to my earlier point, which is, making gender-based assumptions about a female employee is not right, regardless of what a person believes. Employees are protected by labor laws in this regards, but entrepreneurs aren't protected from VCs in this regards and the entrepreneur's only realistic recourse is to educate/increase the investor's awareness level on matters like these, or reject a deal offer if education doesn't work, but this could conflict with shareholders' rights, which come first. Women entrepreneurs only make up about 3%-5% of the startups, and VCs are mainly men (~90%) so it may take awhile for awareness to reach a certain level, but this could be speeded up if people stopped making gender-based assumptions.
Amy J |
