In high school, college and well throughout my twenties, I felt that I could do anything a man could do in our society, and had no reason to believe otherwise. Now that I'm 33 and considering having my first child, I'm becoming really interested in issues related to pregnancy discrimination. These days, I'm seeing pregnancy discrimination in subtle and not so subtle forms everywhere. My own work experience ranges from teaching undergraduate courses while a grad student to a short year that felt long at an investment bank -- now I'm a school teacher, and even in the female-dominated profession of teaching, I have seen what I can only describe as "pregnancy discrimination." From school HR peoples' off-handed comments about how "hiring guys" is always better because the students "respect them more" and they "put more into it" whereas women "put more into" their families to the fact that the top analysts I saw at the bank were nothing less than superhuman if they had kids...yes, pregnancy discrimination is out there, and I think we have to be really vigilant about not letting it become a sort of permanent glass ceiling.

It's no surprise to me that, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, pregnancy discrimination complaints have increased by 31 percent over the last decade, from 3,385 complaints in 1992 to 4,449 in 2005. During that same time period, prelitigation settlements have tripled, from $3.7 million to $11.6 million. Most companies are pretty diligent about making sure that these complaints never get to court, because a higher court ruling on this could create...I dunno...true equality in the workplace?

Also, it seems every time you open the newspaper these days, there's an article about how girls are surpassing boys in school from the elementary years on through college. As an educator, I'm glad to hear that girls are doing so well. I expect boys would do better if we could allow them to learn with both sides of their brains, rather than paralyzing them with our peculiar American style of homophobia (but that's another story altogether).

Anyhow, my point is that, if girls are PREPARED to take on powerful roles through their success in education, these pregnancy discrimination issues are going to become MORE AND MORE important...don't you think? I think we owe it to the generations coming up to wage a good legal battle over pregnancy discrimination charges, and to be vocal about it NOW so that the next generation will face fewer professional set backs.