Is freezing eggs really the answer?

[dropcap]U[/dropcap]niversity probably isn’t the time to be thinking about having children, at least that was the impression I received when I discussed the topic with my flatmates. Outside of our university bubble, however, having children and how it affects a woman’s place in the work force continues to be a hot topic, with Apple and Facebook recently announcing plans to pay for their female employees to freeze their eggs.

Yet whilst I applaud Apple and Facebook for addressing the issue, I can’t help but feel their policy only scratches the surface of the problem, or worse, exacerbates it.

Certainly the issue is one that needs discussing. Less than a third of the most important jobs in Britain are held by women, with female managers earning, on average, around 35% less than their male counterparts. Whilst this is clearly part of a wider problem of continuing gender inequality,

it is impossible not to partially link women failing to obtain top jobs to the continuing lack of support for working mothers.

The general pattern seems to be, despite women like Facebook’s own Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo’s Marissa Miller juggling
high powered jobs and young families, when women have children their value to their employers’ decreases. Motherhood and career are still perceived to be at odds. In 2005 the Equal Opportunities Commission found around 30,000 women are forced out of their jobs because of pregnancy discrimination. Many women, when asked by a prospective employer, are forced to lie about their desire to start a family for fear of being turned down for the job.

In this sense what Apple and Facebook are doing is worth celebrating. They are sending a clear message to their female employees that they support and value their decision to have children. However in my opinion it ignores the root causes of the wider issue. By encouraging women to have children later it is implied that it is impossible to balance the two; that you cannot rise through the ranks of a successful organisation and have a family; that you must wait until you have achieved a certain level of success before considering a child. Personally, I find the idea ludicrous.

Motherhood doesn’t make you less ambitious or hardworking.

Asking women to put off having children in order to achieve success, especially when there are just a small number of top jobs, is wrong.

Instead employers and policy makers should give more support to their employees. The decision to have children late in life is a perfectly valid one, but employers should stand by those who wish to have them earlier.

Providing better childcare options or more flexible working hours would allow women to be present mothers whilst remaining a valuable member of a company.

Childcare is ludicrously expensive- on average around £8000 annually, per child- so to see employers help towards it would show a greater understanding of what women really want.

In order to really tackle the issue though, we need to put to bed some deep running assumptions. Not just the idea that having a family makes women less committed and dedicated; to imply that women are incapable of balancing the two is belittling. But also those about whose responsibility it is to care for children. Why it is still perceived as primarily women’s? Society desperately needs to reconsider how we still view parental roles.

In her recent speech to the UN Emma Watson stated that as a society we value father’s roles as parents less than mother’s, despite them being just as important. In order to help women in the workplace we need to change this.

Parenting is a shared role and both parents should be able to take an equal responsibility.

Men who care for their children should be celebrated, and women eager to return to work after the birth of their children should not be demonised.

As the adage goes, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ and shared parenting, alongside greater flexibility, is what is necessary for women to achieve their potential in the workplace. So thanks for acknowledging the problem, Apple; the solution, however, is a lot more complex.