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The Parent Project: Do working mums get too easy a ride?
Last week Vogue's UK editor Alexandra Shulman wrote a piece in the Daily Mail suggesting that the odds are stacked too far in favour of working mothers when it comes to employment legislation - particularly in terms of maternity benefits and flexible working rules. However, we suspected that a few of you might disagree - so we asked our new blogger, The Parent Project's Christine Armstrong, to pen a response. As a brand new mum, and as someone who manages a team of women, we thought she'd have a good perspective. Her conclusion? That Alexandra has it all wrong about working mums: 'Far from feeling supremely in control, at liberty to exploit generous maternity benefits and flexible hours, they mostly feel stressed, exhausted, cash-strapped and bloody guilty about everything.' What do you think? Click here to read 'Do mothers get too easy a ride?' and let us know...
In today's bulletin:
Sainsbury's feels the squeeze from all sides?
I'll drink to that - Majestic toasts new strategy
Life not getting any easier for UK SMEs
The Parent Project: Do working mums get too easy a ride?
MT Expert's Ten Top Tips: Keep your IT systems secure
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All Comments
Jo Madeup 20-Nov-09, 15:55
I'm disappointed that you seem to be trying to instigate some kind of female on female argument, when the purpose of the original article seemed to be to highlight the fact that women of childbearing age run the risk of becoming unemployable as a result of legislation which overlooks the needs of the employer as well as the employee. Snide comments about how Alexandra Shulman is 'unsympathetic to her own sex' are either disingenuous link bait or a willful failure to understand that it's not about sympathy, it's about ensuring that the pendulum doesn't swing too far the other way and make it impossible for women to get jobs between the ages of 20 and 50 precisely because legislation makes it hard to accommodate their rights. It's not a competition as to who can feel most hard done-by, it should be a debate as to how best to ensure that women aren't disadvantaged by their ability to bear children, without disadvantaging employers so substantially that they can't sustain their business. I'm saddened that whilst a large part of Christine Armstrong's post actually echoed the sentiments of the original article, the tacky bitchiness in the opening sentence undermined the whole spirit of the debate.