Unspeakable

[Total Noob]

I'm going to address the unspeakable; it turns out this issue cuts a lot of ways. I'm sure you know that but may be hesitant about being politically incorrect.

In the space of about an hour today, I saw in mass media three different takes on women in the workplace (specifically the sports workplace) that could be advancing or setting back women's rights by a decade for decades. The topics are important but the implications of policy don't get aired out.

1. On Jan 9, pro golfer Michelle Wie announced she was due to give birth at some point this summer. https://golfweek.com/2020/01/09/mich...d-jonnie-west/ By this morning, Golf Channel analysts on a panel, including one woman, wondered out loud if the fire was still there for her to be competitive on the tour (at least until she was no longer physically able to play).

I get it that a pro golfer is an independent contractor, but if she was an athlete on a team and someone with the company said that same thing at a staff meeting -- and certainly if those considerations led to adverse action -- that company is getting its heart cut out and shown to it by way of law suit, and would be castigated by the universe, and properly so.

But what about reality? Between the distraction of being pregnant and the inevitable symptoms that are paired with it, an employer has some need to be worried that her daily work is going to be substandard or curtailed, and that will negatively affect everyone involved.

2. A few minutes later, on a different sports channel pre-gaming tonight's college football championship, a woman reporter anxiously told an audience that when she found out her due date conflicted with the (January) championship about 4 years ago, she had labor induced on Dec 11 so she could work the game as she always did, and this was presented by the network as charming and courageous. And there were photos of the now one month old child at the stadium.

I hope and expect the reporter and her doctor agreed that this was not creating any new risk to mother or child, but still, putting football and employment over childbirth and family is a kind of red flag, at least for me.

Now I get it that if I was her employer, I officially for the moment have no votes and that it would probably be illegal to express an opinion on what she does with her life and her baby's life, and certainly illegal to take some kind of adverse action even if I though she was out of line and even though I might also end up liable if something put out of my control goes awry. But it is hard for me not to feel what I feel, and I also wonder if this woman' exuberance is not a bad precedent such that other employers will expect women to confine the time of childbirth to the moment that best suits the company's needs.

3. Serena Williams won a tournament for the first time since having a child in Sept. 2017. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/12/t...ntl/index.html I get it that pro tennis is difficult enough, especially if you are 38 much less also recovering from child birth and the miscellaneous other physical problems and stressors that Serena has endured. But should it be illegal for employers to look at this situation and say to themselves that if Serena isn't 100% for 31 months that such-and-such at my company isn't going to be 100% of herself for that long and that if I can't get 100% I can't pay 100% and simultaneously not have to lose sleep over the possibility of being sued into irrelevance?

A lot of these kinds of laws are passed with the best of intentions, including having great aspirations. But sometimes stark reality intervenes in our dreams, and we should be prepared to acknowledge that.

[Jintan]

I learned this from Cheech and Chong. Put your hands together in front of you. Then say, ohm, ohm, mellow, mellow.

There, don't you feel better?

[Ned Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Total Noob

I'm going to address the unspeakable;

You raise some damn good points. I'm particularly horrified about the mother who had her baby early so as to fit in with her work commitments.

To put a childs whole life and possibly quality of life in danger is absolutely deplorable.

Your other examples are also not acceptable and as you say could well result in legal action if occurring in the normal workplace.

And the only response I can offer to our other contributor "Mexican Americans don't like to get up early in the morning but they have to so they do it real slow."

[Buzz]

Life is best enjoyed when you don't go LOOKING for things to be bothered by.

[Ned Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Buzz

Life is best enjoyed when you don't go LOOKING for things to be bothered by.

On the otherhand:-The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing

[Buzz]

What's he/she gunna do here?????

It's one thing to enact change in your life, where you have impact... it's entirely different to read stories and get all worked up when you have no connection to anything. If stories of others bothers someone.. call your legislature... start a protest.... but posting on the Internet ain't doin' anything.

[Ned Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Buzz

but posting on the Internet ain't doin' anything.

Except perhaps informing others who know nothing of the injustice, crime or blatant stupidity, and who may have been effected or feel horrified, that this is going on, and thus opening up the way for them to do something about it.

Where on earth do you think William Wilberforce got his information? No, it wasn't the internet, it didn't exist then, it was from letters written to the paper and from community discussions. Same with using six year old kids to clean chimneys. Only by community action did labor laws come into force. For any of these things to happen the community need to know about it, what better way, these days, than by means of the internet.

[Buzz]

if you say so.. I see an age of pseudo-activism... "like and share if you agree" that's HARDLY doing anything.

[Ned Seagoon]

Hell man, posting on the internet is a significant way to influence things these days. I was recently in the electoral office of my local federal politician and he had one staff member trawling the internet to find content of opinion on his area of interest.

We had the Federal Government stage a Royal Commission into institutional sexual abuse of children which came from a huge number of reports of such abuse by now aged victims, much of the initial reporting from Internet Reports. see https://www.childabuseroyalcommissio...u/final-report

[Jintan]

Actually, the report is institutional responses to sexual abuse. 17 volumes, more than likely more than 50,000 pages. I'd be inclined to blame the internet if it was involved in that bureaucratic monstrosity.

[Jintan]

Now, back to staving off the Triumph of Evil.

Ohm, ohm, mellow, mellow.

[Jintan]

I truly did not intend my comments end this marvelous debate.

[renegade600]

I am just wondering why everyone here is speaking about the unspeakable.

[Ned Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Jintan

I truly did not intend my comments end this marvelous debate.

The great pity is that there are so few who come here and are prepared to make a comment these days. This seems to be a common failing of specialist computer forums.

An example of an even more specialist forum, which started off as a discussion on the main ISP here in Australia, back when dial-up was the way to connect. That ISP was called Bigpond, it was owned by main telco, the then government owned, Telecom Australia.

The forum was started by a disgruntled customer of Bigpond who complained of slow connection speeds and dropouts. The forum he started, using his own customised software platform, was called Whirlpool, as a play on words of Bigpond.

Today that forum has expanded to include many areas of interest, it has a large following, and new posters joining every day.
The current stats are:
858,091 registered members
9,383 visited in past 24 hrs
799 members online now
1,100 guests visiting now
3,636,842 threads
65,858,504 posts
You can take a look at Whirlpool at https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/

In this day and age perhaps the only way for specialists forums to survive is to broaden their horizons.

[Jintan]

Good idea. We can expand this forum. Let's see. Easily, there should be a sub forum for vegetarians. And fishing, and maybe golf. And a welcome forum, to give bots a place to start.