Are you thinking about kids in the near future?

[franceslievens]

Re-post of a re-post on Crooked Timber:

Chair: I’m not sure that I can sign off on your being the advisor for these students.

Me [Pam]: Excuse me? (Background: two new federally-funded three-yr grants, each with a doctoral stipend available for a student)

Chair: Well, how do I know you are not going to meet a man and run off and be with him?

(I kid you not, he said that).

Me: You don’t. But how do I know that you aren’t going to meet a man and run off with him, and abandon the department?

(He didn’t think it was funny – but he signed the forms.)

It reminds me of a question sometimes asked by ignorant men on job interviews: "You aren't planning on having kids in the next year or two, are you?" (Answer: "My husband will be taking the maternity leave.")

If you have some extra time on your hands: check out the interesting discussion in the comments to the Crooked Timber post. It all bottles down to this: "Was the chair rational in assuming that his female professor was more likely to abandon the job than her male colleagues?"

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

While we are obliged to answer a prospective employer's questions about our professional background truthfully, we are allowed to lie about personal questions of that nature.

"My husband will be taking the maternity leave" is not the right answer - I believe that the only answer is "NO, there are not plans like that at the moment", even in the relatively sheltered profession of teaching where, at least at my school, it is more or less expected of the women to have kids and return to school as soon as possible. With all the pregnancies around me I'm starting to feel like the odd one out...

And the men and women asking these questions aren't ignorant, they see this question from a economic perspective and believe that as they invest money in you with training and wages etc. they are entitled to keep you for a while. They tend to forget though that you might leave the job for a variety of other reasons including a better offer from another employer. I think this question is wrong on many levels, but I can see the rationale behind it, which doesn't mean that I get all feminist-angry about it.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I can see the rationale behind the question, yes, and I do get all feminist-angry about it (I'm still wondering whether you forgot a negation in your last sentence). You are right stating that "No, there aren't any plans like that at the moment" is the only possible answer. (So why do they bother to ask the question, anyway?) Teaching is such a feminine job that I see pregnant women everywhere at the moment. I'm not starting to feel like the odd one out, just yet.

Thing is my answer was referring to something different at the same time, not only maternity leave, but I didn't really want to elaborate on it in my post (it is a bit off topic). In Belgium a women is entitled to 3 months maternity leave, but she can aditionaly take 3 months parental leave (which is paid by the health insurance, so you don't get full wages for these three months). You don't have to take parental leave right after your maternity leave, but it has to be taken before your kid is a certain age. Now men are entitled to parental leave as well, but they hardly ever take it. Why? Because they don't even dare to ask for it! Friends of ours took a year off from their job to go travelling. The guy said they all looked strange at him because he, as a man, would take such a year off. It's something women do, to care for the kids.

Not only do people that ask this question forget you can leave the job for other reasons as well (you don't like it there after all and decide to give the job up in your trial period -- hey, that works both ways!), but they also seem to forget that (1) a pregnancy usually takes 9 months, of which you can aproximately use 6 or 5 months to prepare for you not being there for three months and (2) women come back after those three months to work as well as they did before.

But yeah, it makes me angry, and I can't seem to be very rational about it. It's always the same, isn't it? You want a great job with lots of opportunities? Please, don't get a life.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Yep, you're right, I forgot a don't in that sentence. I'd really love to be able to edit comments for silly mistakes like that.

There was a huge discussion in our coalition government regarding paid maternity and parental leave and there even was the proposition that men HAD to take a couple of weeks off, but of course that didn't get through. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of what they agreed on in the end.

It was a big thing, because apparently we are dying out and especially young educated women have children later and later or not at all. There was a lot of debate about the causes for that, but as they're highly complex, it became pointless arguing and blaming (men/women/society/employers/the economy/selfishness etc.) quickly.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Well, seems births are going up here again, because women are getting their first kid earlier than they used to (so now you have to generations of women creatin offspring at once: a heap that's in their late twenties and in others in their mid twenties). My sister was 28 when MK came along, which has been the average age for having kids for years, but is regarded rather late right now.

(Shit, I'm turning 27 in two weeks... Should I feel the clock ticking?)

What were we talking about? Oh yeah: men used to get 4 days, but now they get 10, even at schools. Because that used to be a problem: men couldn't take their days, because of problems with substitutions etc. But with ten days a school can ask for a substitution teacher.

The young educated woman issue, or the issue that you can't raise kids and start up a career all at once. Because your job should be your life.