More specifically, the Court said that "even if there were several isolated instances of individual discrimination,” there was insufficient evidence to prove that discrimination was the company’s 'standard operating procedure.' If you'd like to read the Court's opinion, it's here.
A Goldilocks Zone in which the size of the class and the quality of the evidence are neither too hard nor too soft is looking more and more elusive. This is particularly true of the "pregnancy penalty" which hampers women's careers in finance and law alike.
Those elite law firms that earn high scores for promoting their women into the ranks of equity partnership, for instance, tend not to be the firms that have liberal well-utilized family-friendly policies.
Unfortunately, the advice I was given so long ago - don't get pregnant before you make partner - may be as valuable to women today as it was to me in the early '80s (full disclosure: there never did come a time that seemed right to test how family-friendly my law firm might truly be).
If you think your sisters have your back, here's what Judge Loretta A. Preska of the United States District Court in Manhattan had to say about work-life balance.
“A female employee is free to choose to dedicate herself to the company at any cost, and, so far as this record suggests, she will rise in this organization accordingly,” she wrote. “The law does not require companies to ignore or stop valuing ultimate dedication, however unhealthy that may be for family life.”
Private industry, she opined, has no obligation to be solicitous of women's special role in creating new life on the planet.
These days, men want paternity leave themselves. Perhaps the solution to the career/family choice only women are currently required to make will go back on the national justice agenda when men want it too. Then we'll have a private solution that needs no law to remedy and no judge to enforce.
When you can't get relief in court, you do what needs to be done.
First, you seek relief from the legislature. These days, that won't get you very far. There's not much room for family values when the economy is hurting. No one in government is likely to lend a hand to working mothers. They're happy to protect a zygote, but if that zygote develops into a fetus and is eventually born as a squalling, rights-demanding woman, not so much.
When the government won't support you, you either organize for the purpose of persuading private industry to support family life or you move up the corporate ladder (and help your sisters do the same) so that you can make policy instead of having it be made for you (or against you, as the case may be).
No one ever willingly gives up power. Power must be taken and, once taken, must be used. Ask my friend Gloria Feldt who wrote No Excuses and means what she says. There's no excuse for discrimination against women in the workplace because they take maternity leave. And with our reproductive rights under attack, more and more women will be forced to bear children whether it's a bad time in their career to do so or not.
No birth control system is 100% effective. Condoms break and women's resistance is overcome whether by an unfriendly date or an abusive husband.
If the courts won't help, we just have to adjust our strategy and tactics. There's No Excuse for failing to exert the power we possess to create a workplace that accommodates women who are willing to sacrifice - for the benefit of society - their health, their bodies, their energy and their time to re-populate the planet and nurture the future CEOs of Microsoft, Google and, yes, Bloomberg.
So, let's pull up our big girl panties and get on with it.
Negotiation Tip: the party with the most negotiation power is the party who behaves as is she's got it.
