5 stigmas working moms face

In the 21st century, women are still forced to choose between motherhood and professional development. How many of us have been told phrases like “I don’t hire moms” or “we need someone without children”? No more discrimination and stigmas for working moms.

Juggling and wage gap

According to UN WOMEN, the gender wage gap is 16%, this means that women earn only 84% of what men earn.

In addition to being over-represented in vulnerable and informal jobs, women perform more care and domestic work than men, globally.

“The disadvantage due to motherhood is a reason for wage inequality. On average, working mothers are paid less, and the disparity is greater as the number of daughters or sons increases”, says UN Women.

Through a document that addresses the wage gap, the agency explains:

“The fact that mothers have lower wages is related to reduced working hours; being employed in jobs suitable for family life but with low wages; hiring and promotion decisions that harm their careers and with a lack of programs that support returning to work after being out of the labor market”.

In the book Overwhelmed, by Brigid Schulte, the author talks about confetti time: countless fragments that we cut out throughout the day in an attempt to satisfy the greatest number of demands. Working moms must “juggle” balancing their professional and family lives.

5 Social Stigmas against Working Moms

According to the ranking, Mejores empresas para madres trabajadoras, by Mamá Godín, out of the 960 executive positions, 334 are held by women. That is, 36% of that figure, only 13% are mothers, in contrast to 64% occupied by men, of whom 27% are fathers. “With these data we can analyze the situation of mothers and their low participation in the labor force”, says Aideé Zamorano, founder of Mamá Godín.

Inegi data indicate that 33.4% of working mothers work in the informal sector. In addition, they do not have access to health services as a labor benefit.

In addition to inequalities at work (the salary gap and the glass ceiling), working mothers face social stigmas that limit their development.

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1. “I don’t hire women with children because they ask for a lot of permits”

Many companies do not want to give mothers maternity leave, nor are they flexible with them during pregnancy and lactation.

Between January 2011 and March 2020, the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) received 723 reports of women fired because their employers found out that they were going to be mothers; even though this is illegal.

Most working mothers feel that they are not given flexibility in their jobs. They prefer to work in companies where they can do remote work or opt for informal work to have more time to spend at home and raising children.

2. “Working mothers abandon their children”

There are tensions between working and non-working mothers over how to raise children. Mothers who decide to work are singled out and it is believed that they do not pay the same attention to their children or do not “take good care of them”.

This is deeply rooted in society; historically women have been in charge of raising children. The ideal would be to create a national care system, or increase government support and programs aimed at working mothers.

As for companies, they should implement flexible hours, remote work, coaching programs, support groups for working mothers, as well as medical and psychological care for infants and mothers, especially in times of pandemic, since high rates of stress, depression and anxiety have been reported, according to WHO data.

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3. “Housework is a women’s thing”

Historically, women are the main heads of the household, which makes it difficult for them to combine motherhood and housework with a steady job.

Women spend an average of 4.1 hours a day on housework and childcare, in contrast men spend 1.7 hours a day, according to the Covid-19 report and the economy of care, prepared by UN Women. In addition to their working day outside the home, women carry out another workday inside the home.

Some approaches focus on promoting new models of fatherhood among men, as well as educating girls and boys to share these responsibilities. For example, the Three Rs approach: recognize, redistribute and reduce domestic and care work.

4. “Caring for children is mere responsibility of mothers”

Culturally established gender roles in society tend to make women’s participation in newborn care mandatory.

The Federal Labor Law reinforces it, since a pregnant woman in Mexico is granted 84 days of maternity leave, distributed before and after childbirth, while a man only 5 days of paternity leave.

“It is the companies the ones that have the responsibility and the challenge of equalizing maternity and paternity benefits, in order not to reinforce stereotypes in the laws, since the bias drives women out of the labor market”, adds Zamorano.

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5. The “luchona” (fight) moms

Mothers who for some reason live without the father of their children are singled out and stigmatized. With the arrival of social networks, this mockery has gone viral and they are called “Luchona (wrestling) moms” forgetting the responsibility of the father who abandons his children and the mother is the only one in charge of providing and caring for them.

In 2020, 36.7 million women aged 15 and over who have at least one daughter or son were identified, of which 11 million do not have a spouse, which represents 30.1%.

Of the total number of mothers who do not declare having a spouse, 66.9% were once in a relationship, and are currently divorced, separated or widowed, while the remaining 33.1% declare themselves single.

As for the economically active population, 5.9 million are single mothers, of which 43% are single and 57% were once in a relationship.

Mothers without a spouse who are heads of their household and are employed are 3.4 million, equal to 71.8% of all women who declare themselves in charge of their household, according to a document prepared by Inmujeres.

We need public policies with a gender perspective that do not reinforce these stereotypes. It is essential to promote tax incentives for companies that hire more women and mothers, as well as a Government provider of a national care system and other initiatives that can be implemented to break down stigmas. But above all, society is also required to get involved to really achieve a change in mentality, ideas and beliefs.

Translated by: Ligia M. Oliver Manrique de Lara

Spanish version: Here

Other topics of interest: To be or not to be a mother, a well-thought and individual decision Children beyond the family What the lockdown took from the children.