Last week, Boston.com posted Fessing up to being a mom can backfire on job seekers. In this article, it explains that while women are protected against sex-based stereotyping under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “pregnant women and mothers are seen as less dependable, less authoritative, and less committed to their jobs”.
This is particularly true in male dominated fields such as technology where an employee is expected to devote significant off hours on the computer. Keeping up with industry blogs, maintaining website side projects and contributing to open source is becoming an expected norm among web developers. This makes it tough for parents of both genders to stay current, but its assumed that mothers can’t keep up.
So what do you think? Has the motherhood penalty affected your career? Are unrealistic expectations keeping women from pursing the geekier jobs in web/software development?
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