For all those who have just tuned in Marissa Mayer is ex Google Vice president who has been appointed CEO to Yahoo recently even after she declare dthat she was expecting her first child at 37  and one of only 20 female CEOs within the Fortune 500, is a pretty big deal.
In addition to chatter around her appointment, much of the buzz has centered around her announcement that she plans to only take a few weeks’ maternity leave—three specifically—and will work throughout that time.
To Marissa,
First of all without patronising a pregnant woman who doesn’t know what life will unfold in the coming months I need to congratulate you for being hired in a powerful position in her 6th month of pregnancy. I think it’s a big achievement and it just shows how it doesn’t matter whether man or woman, pregnant or not you can still turn around a company’s future. Well it is contradictory to a research conducted by the American Sociological Review that found given identical resumes, a mother is 79% less likely to be hired and 100% less likely to be promoted. Another study found that working moms who are very good at what they do, are looked down upon. The reason female go-getters with children are disliked? They’re not perceived to be “good mothers.â€_x009d_ Last year, angel investor Paige Craig went so far as to identify the elephant in the room when he shared his uneasiness about funding a company run by a pregnant woman. In a post for Business Insider that attracted more than 22,000 comments, he summed up his feelings:
“A pregnant founder / CEO is going to fail her companyâ€_x009d_
As a pregnant CEO I can totally relate to you. It’s not that we want to prove a point and the world needs to point fingers at us. Trust us given a choice we would love to enjoy our maternity leave and spend as much time with our children but we also know there is a life after those 3 months which will be shaped by how we are in these 3 months.
I remember soon after my first baby I had to work through my maternity leave from home too as those were the worst hit recession times in 2008, and my company was laying off a lot of people. I did take that extra effort to do all I could to retain my position.
Yes parenting is difficult, probably the toughest job in the world and absolutely unpredictable. You don’t know what you are signing up for. The baby may sleep through the night, the feeding will go as planned, he will take well to a caregiver besides the mother or not it’s all subjective. Yes there are times when you will need to create exclusive time to juggle between both your roles but trust me women or should I say moms are blessed with the ability to switch off and on with ease. I am in no way endorsing that women should cut their maternity leaves short and follow path of an individual and this case its you Ms Mayer, but let your circumstances decide your choices. There are others who have their views on you too Ms. Mayer (see Sheryl Sandberg here, Ann-Marie Slaughter here). Both absolutely brilliant in their own right!
What would be of interest to me is how the society and that includes you too, Ms. Mayer , unfolds opportunities for women from here on
1. Will you or other CEO’s expect this from your women employees too?
2. Will companies start considering hiring pregnant women?
3. Will companies be empathetic and give moms the flexibility they need to perform better and stress free
4. Will companies including Yahoo set up baby care facilities in their premises to help women manage the two roles effectively and not give up feeding or pile on guilt of choosing career over a baby in these expensive times?
5. Will companies pay mothers the same salaries versus other employees who hang around longer in office to earn brownie points from the boss. Well it works very well in India. Indian bosses believe that the more hours you put in actually define how much work you do.
At the same time I would urge women to make their choices effectively. I see a lot of women especially in India take up flexi jobs, figure out new careers, turn entrepreneurs and actually discover a different facet about their personality when they decided to either quit or take a sabbatical from their flourishing careers.
There are absolutely no parameters of judging you Ms. Mayer as a parent and please do not stress yourself over thinking about all the media who will watch every move of yours. You are the only one who can decide whether or not you have succeeded as a mom in achieving what you wanted for your child. As moms we should not judge another mom who is trying just as hard to make things work for her. Yes you have the power of being at the helm of a ship and having a fat pay package to afford the best child care but I also know that you have all the glares that come with it.
All the best!
Mansi Zaveri
Founder & CEO,
www.ksp.noesis.dev
Janani S Koushik
Antara Parekh
