The indelicacies of being a job applicant in a delicate way

Remember when I wrote about losing out on yet another job to motherhood? Turns out that what I experienced was, like, so illegal in my state, which is developing some of the strongest anti–pregnancy discrimination law in the land. Ironically, just a few days before getting discriminated out of that job, I’d been chatting at a party with a lawyer who works on pregnancy discrimination and who told me about a new case she’d worked on that strengthened pregnancy discrimination protections.

That case was just like mine, only mine was even stronger and clearer. I didn’t file charges with the local civil rights board, as a lawyer advised me to do, just confronted the temp agency rep, who ate crow after talking with his lawyer. He quickly found me other work (and promised to educate his staff and that of his client).

Here’s the good-bad news: I am not alone. The National Partnership for Women and Families reports that complaints of pregnancy discrimination rose by 14% between 2006 and 2007 and by a whopping 40% increase over the last decade.

Good for women for filing complaints. But yuck that we have so much to complain about. And, sadly, in most states the law against pregnancy discrimination isn’t very strong. The National Partnerships for Women and Families explains, “Under the law, pregnant women do not receive protection from adverse treatment, and employers can fire, lay off or refuse to hire pregnant women. However, the law states that pregnant women cannot be singled out, that employers must prove that men are held to the same standards and that male job candidates are asked comparable questions during the hiring process.” This explanation isn’t crystal clear to me, but I do know that in my home state—Washington—in a hiring process, you can ask only whether an applicant can do the job, and requirements, including physical ones, must be clearly established and uniform for all applicants. So rejecting me on the grounds of pregnancy for a job that required the ability to occasionally lift up to 25 pounds—which I said I could do—was clearly illegal. The fact that the job offer was rescinded after I mentioned I was pregnant was what put the employer in hot water.

The law couldn’t help me in the grayer area where I simply never received job offers after I mentioned I was pregnant. Broader changes in the job market are required. If paid parental leave were funded throughout the country, high-quality daycare provided and publicly subsidized so that mothers could work without the likelihood of disruption, and if temporary work weren’t so prevalent, we’d likely face less pregnancy discrimination.

Still, if employers understood that the law forbids the kind of paternalism toward pregnant women I was subjected to, I think that would transform attitudes and reduce discrimination. I was told, “We’d feel so bad if we needed something heavier lifted.” Never mind feeling bad about leaving me jobless (or considering that my 2 1/2-year-old is heavier than 25 pounds and I’ve lifted her every day of this pregnancy); the law makes clear that it’s not an employer’s job to protect people in a Delicate Way; that’s my business.

This is a profound shift, and not just for Neanderthals. I found myself rethinking the matter once I understood the law. If employers thought more clearly about the actual requirements of the job and let go of irrelevant assumptions about who they picture doing it, we’d be a step in the right direction.