“Babies.” A word that strikes fear in the hearts of college kids.
We’ve all successfully escaped teenage pregnancy statistics with only a few scares along the way. We’re all acquainted with the the collective sigh of relief women breathe when that time of the month comes along. OH THANK GOD! I’M NOT PREGNANT. WHATS-HIS-FACE AND I WOULD HAVE HAD HIDEOUS BABIES.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to put our reproductive abilities on hold completely until we’re ready to utilize them? With the advancement of reproductive technology, science is offering ways to align our biological clocks to our personal schedules.
The push for biology to evolve has come with the changing workplace culture. Clearly, women are overtaking men in the educational arena and becoming valuable contributors in the workplace. As corporate culture seeks to retain female employees, women are at a crossroads — caught between motherhood and career.
Via: The Blaze Institute
With this dilemma in mind, Apple and Facebook are trying to provide a way to accommodate women’s biological demands. Starting in January of next year, Apple and Facebook will be offering employees the option of freezing their eggs. Women everywhere should be jumping for joy because corporate culture is finally realizing that women are a valuable part of the workforce, right?
Unfortunately, this new coverage doesn’t provide a viable solution to the problem of balancing women’s biological desires for reproduction with their career aspirations. Subtly suggesting that women need to conform their reproductive time table to a company’s needs and insinuating that motherhood can be pushed off until after you’ve exhausted your full potential is condescending at best and degrading at worst.
So what exactly are the problems with egg freezing? Well, it’s not a foolproof back-up plan for women hoping to hit the snooze button on their biological clock. Very little research has been done to examine the long-term risks of women injecting themselves with high doses of hormones in order for their eggs to be harvested. Because, you know, overdosing with hormones to hyper-stimulate your ovaries is probably totally healthy and safe.
Via: Biopolitical Times
And who exactly will be paying for the annual fee — from $500 to $1000 — of storing those eggs? Egg freezing is only a small part of the laborious process women must endure for their frozen eggs to turn into tiny humans. Not to mention the emotional and mental trauma that goes along with potential failure. In fact, there is a 77% failure rate of egg retrieval resulting in live birth in women aged 30 and a 91% failure rate for women in their 40s.
As Jay-Z would say, “Numbers don’t lie, check the scoreboard.”
Corporate culture rewards men and women who forgo family life for long, inflexible hours and complete devotion to the company. Why birth a baby when Google could be your baby, amIrite?
As a woman who hopes to enter the workforce soon, I aspire to a career that people respect and value with no gendered stigma. Is it worth it though to sacrifice my uterus at the altar of the corporate gods? I resent Apple and Facebook for telling me that their company is worth delaying my dreams of granite countertops, finger-painted walls and screaming children whom I might be able to raise into functioning adults.
These high-tech options are a nice way for corporations to drum up good publicity about their acceptance and respect for motherhood, but in reality, it’s a jab at all those moms who decided to get knocked up the traditional way and dared to interfere with the company’s agenda. Maybe it’s time to adjust workplace culture surrounding family life instead of trying to adjust biology and Mother Nature.
Via: Marler Blog
The crisis of work-life balance seems to always fall squarely on the shoulders of women. Are we good enough mothers, employees, wives and friends? Men, however, place much less value on their duties and roles as father and husband, favoring instead the call of career and the cold embrace of earning power. In a recent Pew study, results found that men valued higher pay over flexibility. In order for women to find a middle ground between motherhood and career, men must be willing to step up and become just as invested in child-rearing and home life as women are.
We should encourage men to find pride in their titles as father and husband. And maybe, instead of shelling out the big bucks for egg freezing endeavors, Facebook should consider offering a human daycare on par with their doggy one.
Until artificial wombs are developed and we can all “Brave New World” it, we’ll have to settle for attempting to change attitudes about family within the corporate culture. Until that happens, don’t put your dreams on hold for the cold embrace of a company.
Make your own timeline.
Feature photo courtesy of: Lilywell
