The gender pay gap has been a continual issue that negatively affects many working women all over the world. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, In 2016, fill time, year-round working women earned 80% of what men earned and in 2017, women earned only 2% higher than the previous year, at 82% of men's earnings. In order for women to earn the same amount as men, it would take an 47 more working days than men. One of the most prominent and leading causes for the gender pay gap is gender discrimination. Pregnancy and motherhood is another large factor contributing to gender gap, because pregnant women or mothers are often viewed in our society as less able or less eligible than men. Additionally, the distribution of home labor is still unequal, even when both spouses work full time. Women who work full time are still expected to cook, clean and take after their children which leads to less proficiency in the workplace. This is due to gender roles and ideas that .have been instilled in us for decades. Even married women without children earn less, because women are more likely to give up job opportunities to move for their husband’s job, again due to te gender stereotypes and roles that we have become so “used to”.  It is apparent that in order for women to be treated as equals to men in our society, the gender pay gap must be put to an end.

In relation to the gender pay gap, maternity leave is another large issue that working women often face. In many instances, companies are not required to give paid leave to new mothers, or are only required to give them a short leave. Childbirth is an incredibly taxing event, both physically and emotionally and it is important for new mothers to take an extended amount of time off to care for themselves and their newborns. Rather than being a benefit, paid maternity leave should be a necesity for working women. While many companies to in fact give paid maternity leave, it is apparent that this is not always the case. For example, In an article by fairygodboss, it is stated that“FedEx Corporation offers 6 weeks of paid maternity leave and 6 weeks of unpaid maternity leave”, indicating that Fedex employees may not be satisfied with this short 6 week leave. In many instances, to be able to qualify for protected leave mothers need to work at the company for a year or more and have up to 1,250 hours of work in the year before leaving.  The U.S is the only country in the developed world without guarantee of paid maternity leave. New mothers in other developed countries such as Finland are entitled to up to three years of paid maternal leave--a stark contrast to our 12 week average in the US.

There’s reason to believe that expanding maternity leave would be conducive to higher productivity within one to three years for recipients of the “benefit”. Naturally, this would result in lower rates of female attrition in the workplace- by an astounding 50%. That’s This is debatably the greatest economic merit to expanding maternity leave. Take FedEx Express, one such company with notoriously bad maternity practice where women constitute 30% of the workplace. Using the simplest algebra, a five year old could deduce that that’s a total attrition of about 15% of all employees under FedEx Express. While the expansion of maternity leave would include immediate costs, it’s up to the employer to determine whether they value this 15% of their employees.

We urge you to sign our petition, in the hopes that senator Dianne Fienstein will take action to ensure that all companies are required to give extended and paid maternity leave to its female employees.