Being a mother reduces the options of being recommended for work, according to experts
Women with children are six times less likely to be recommended for a job than those who are not mothers, according to the book "Stereotypes of gender at work", which denounces that mothers are perceived as less competent.
Speaking to EFE, the co-author of the book, Doctor in Social Psychology and lecturer at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Maria Àngels Viladot, explained that the aim of the book is to "collect studies on gender biases both in the work environment as in the domestic one, which also has repercussions ".
"Sentence of motherhood" or "maternal wall" are concepts that define the fact that mothers are perceived as less competent and committed to work compared to women who are not mothers or men, with or without children.
According to Viladot, this conclusion is the result of multiple investigations and field works included in the book, such as the one prepared in 2010 by professors Stephen Benard and Shelley J. Cornell, in which after sending more than 1,200 CVs to different offers At work, the profiles of women without children received twice as many calls as mothers with the same professional qualifications.
"When you have a child, the social norms make it ends up being the woman who takes charge of the domestic chores and the attention of the children, which makes you have the perception that you will not be so involved in the work", Viladot has indicated.
However, in the case of men with children the opposite situation occurs, according to Viladot, "because the social stereotype says that the father is the one who has to support the whole family and this role makes them more linked to the company" .
The teacher denounces that parents "seem more committed to work" than men without children, and are allowed to arrive more late to work, are offered higher wages and have more possibilities of being promoted.
The author also reproaches that, apart from labor discrimination, working mothers are seen as "less feminine or welcoming" than mothers who stay at home, a situation that is reversed in the case of men: "Parents do not they only maintain the perception of competence but also gain the perception of warmth. "
Faced with these barriers, the psychologist assures that mothers "can skip the sanction of motherhood as long as they make their vocation for work clear and explicit".
This conclusion is also the result of an investigation, developed in 2014 in Spain, in which women who specified that they were given to work received the same recommendations, resources and job opportunities as parents. However, those who claimed to be dedicated to the family were less recommended.
"We must attack the issue on different fronts," said Viladot, who in the book proposes different measures to address stereotypes, whether from institutions, the domestic or school.
"That girls do not feel that they are inferior in subjects such as mathematics or physics, because we have internalized that it is something of men", said the teacher, who has stressed the importance of raising girls' awareness of their equal abilities.
For Viladot, a measure to end the discrimination against working mothers would be to force men to take paternity leave and "end the unequal distribution of domestic tasks", a measure that would make the father "face a situation that he has not had before and that will make him more sensitive. "
Sweden is an example of a country that has forced to take paternity leave because, according to the author, "they realized that despite having very broad permits, men did not ask for them because in some cases it is still frowned upon" .
Marc Corominas
