Motherhood

Motherhood can be very difficult to reconcile with work in geeky fields such as the Technology industry or with attendance at events such as Technical conferences or Science Fiction conventions.

Issues

• Women may suffer hiring discrimination if they are mothers, or are likely to become mothers
• For biological mothers, pregnancy itself may sometimes be difficult and dangerous, requiring unplanned leave and rest periods.
• Women who take breaks from work to have babies may fall behind in their technical skills
• The childcare workload falls disproportionately on women, giving them less time for geeky activities ranging from late-night hacking to attending conferences
• Childcare quality expectations also expect disproportionate amounts of time and energy from mothers (see for example attachment parenting, one criticism of which is that the pair bond between mother and child is expected to be all-consumingly powerful to the point of being detrimental to mothers)
  • Women may experience disapproval or criticism if judged by others to be insufficiently dedicated mothers, by, for example, attempting to advance their technical career
• Women attempting to begin a technical career with older children may have difficulty learning it due to existing responsibilities or outright hostility from their own family (for example, if there is a 'family' computer, older children have been known to be very reluctant to let their mother use it)
• Mothers are typified as the most clueless possible users of computers: So simple, your mother could do it
• Families with children typically have less disposable income and additionally in many families, spending money on the mother's hobbies are extremely low budget priorities, after the needs of the family and then the interests of the father (if he is involved) and children (not necessarily in that order)

Incidents

• Conference participant Amy Muller refused entry to Web 2.0 Expo] in 2007 when carrying a 4 month old baby
• Conference participant Rachel Chalmers attended FOO camp with her 8 month old daughter in 2006. At the general closing session, another FOO camper requested that the event be made child-free in future
• Hackerspace NYC Resistor has adopted a child-free policy. Ironically this was posted to their blog immediately after a cute photo of two hackish kids. San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge is also debating whether to ban children

Other reading

Take this pager and shove it, a classic resignation letter/Usenet post by Abby Franquemont, who quit the tech industry entirely after her maternity leave.

"I recognize that I was the first pregnant contractor in Taos' employ, and that I should have expected a few hitches here and there as things got figured out. And I did. But I also expected Taos to work with me, a committed employee with considerable skills and a good reputation in her own right, as evidenced by the fact that I never went to an assignment where I didn't already know someone, or by the fact that a recruiter at a large system administration conference spoke with dozens of people who said, "Hey, I know someone who works for Taos," and mentioned my name. What I didn't expect was for Taos to fight me every step of the way, making every tiny thing about ten times the hassle it needed to be. I didn't expect misinformation about my legal rights, or misrepresentation of Taos' obligations under federal and state law. I never expected to be receiving my first check for meager disability insurance only after my disability was over, thanks to Taos' ineptitude with their books. I expected the same good faith back that I gave, and that's not what happened. In retrospect, I probably should have quit in about October and spared myself the misery of trying to keep dealing with Taos."