1969. Woodstock. Abbey Road. The Moon Landing.And pregnancy discrimination.
Michaela Cornell, a PR publishing professional in Toronto, unearthed the following letter her mom received from her employer after requesting maternity leave.
We regret that we must consider your request for Leave of Absence as a termination as of December 31, 1969.
This is necessary since our Board does not yet approve maternity leaves.
Michaela's tweet of the letter went viral. Among the nearly 500 comments are myriad examples of others experiencing similar discrimination much more recently.
- "In 2007 when a fairly new hire at my office started to show a manager was overheard saying that she wouldn't have been hired if they'd known she was pregnant. The manager was a woman. The fight is not over." @SaudadeAlma
- "In 2000 I told my employer’s HR rep I was pregnant, asked what the maternity leave policy was. She said, 'Well, technically, we don’t have to give you anything.'" @brosti
- "I have a coworker who also used to work for my old boss. When she went on maternity leave they had to hire someone to fill in. They didn’t hire a temp, just hired someone new so she had a newborn and no job." @savingfilm
I'm so glad we've come so far in the past 50 years.
My mom kept this. Perhaps as proof of the bullshit women had to put up with. “You’re pregnant? You’re fired.” pic.twitter.com/QmDrpyNmes— Michaela Cornell (@mcpublic) July 28, 2018
* Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash