If men were the ones to get pregnant and give birth, like seahorses, the world would be so different

Seriously.

If men were the ones to get pregnant and give birth, they would not be saying the shizz they’re saying in the comments on this post about how a Toronto coder heard executives lament over hiring young women because they’ll just get pregnant over and over again.

She said the men were in the 50-plus age range and very well-dressed.

She said that their loud remarks, with little heed of who was nearby, made her question if they had been drinking but she saw no evidence of alcohol.

Ms Kirkham told MailOnline on Wednesday that her anger grew as she listened to the men explain that they would hire ‘mature’ women who were not likely to have more children.

She said: ‘They said that women needed to take more breaks and longer holidays due to ”work-family stress”.’

The execs also named specific women in their department who they were ‘anticipating to take time off to have children’ in the next few years, Ms Kirkham said.

The two men were then joined by a woman, believed to be a colleague, who nodded along in agreement at their misogynistic diatribe.

The saddest thing about all of this is that other people are AGREEING that they wouldn’t hire young women because they get pregnant and go on maternity leave.

Look at how many likes he got for that comment!!

“Best person for the job”, my ass.

.. then they wonder why women hide their pregnancy until the last minute and are in fear of telling their bosses they will be going on maternity leave.

THE SOLUTION?

If companies made it inclusive and encouraged people to have children and take time off to be with them (fathers included), MAYBE, just MAYBE you wouldn’t have women lying about being pregnant.

You could work with women who are thinking of becoming pregnant, or who are pregnant and with 8 months to go, and get them to transition their duties off to others around them for the time being, or work out a part-time work-from-home situation after a month or three with a newborn.

Women who want to work shouldn’t be penalized in their careers for wanting children, and we ARE half of the human race (not to mention the gender that gave birth to you), so why not find a solution instead of trying to penalize us for having the biological parts to create life?

We didn’t choose our gender, and we didn’t choose to be born as girls, but even if we did, we shouldn’t have to apologize for it.

That’s the main crux of it all for me.

WHAT IF MEN HAD TO GET PREGNANT AND GIVE BIRTH?

If men had to get pregnant and give birth, the world would be so different. I’ll bet you all of these things would exist because men would be outraged that they don’t!

To name a few:

• Company daycares so that mothers can come back to work earlier
• Expectant mother parking spots at work
• An empty room with a few chairs so that nursing mothers can pump at work to keep their milk supply up
• Ramps, elevators and escalators EVERYWHERE for parents with strollers (this one is starting to frustrate me)
• Generous maternity leave benefits (not so much in Canada, but in the U.S.)
• No more backtalk about how she “let herself go” or “should be back to work within a month” after giving birth (you try it!)
• Paternity leave would be accepted/mandatory so that the ‘parenthood’ penalty applies to BOTH genders career-wise

Instead, you get comments about how it’s an inconvenience for a woman to get pregnant and disrupt the flow of business.

This one REALLY gets my goat because where do they think they came from? A cabbage patch? A stork?

Do we say such things when healthy people get cancer and have to leave? Have to take a break because their body or their minds are giving out? Are dying?

Is it EVER acceptable to say these things when people are physically or mentally sick?

NO.

So why is it okay to say such things when women get pregnant to start a family?

To put it another way, do these executives at IBM have families? Would they want their wives to go through the same crap and not get hired for her abilities because she can just get pregnant and have kids?

Would they give up their children to have careers?

What if they were the ones who had to spend 9 months waddling around, getting stretch marks, sleeping constantly, vomiting and feeling like something is fighting to get out of you? I’ll bet you they’d bitch a lot more and be a lot more outraged that people aren’t accommodating them.

Then if they had to spend the next 3 months (at a minimum) taking care of a newborn instead of just leaving their stay at home wives to do it, and whistle while hopping off on a plane to travel for the entire week and get a good night’s sleep, I’ll bet you they’d STFU.

This kind of insensitivity really bothers me because I am a working mother now, and I had wanted to start work as early as 3 months after having Baby Bun (locally of course). I am not popping out children just to avoid working, but if I were an employee, am I supposed to put my personal life on hold for a company?

SHAME on you IBM. What you need are more women executives (who are mothers) at the top to combat against this crap.

..and shame on that older lady for nodding along. I’ll bet you she was childless and/or trying to stay on their good side by agreeing with them publicly.