Rebecca Schiller points out that maternity rights aren’t some kind of posh luxury:

The fact that three-quarters of women experience a negative or discriminatory effect of their pregnancy at work, as a report from the women and equalities select committee shows, isn’t a huge surprise to me…

The committee estimates that 53,000 women each year are being discouraged from attending antenatal appointments by their employers, despite permanent employees having the right to time off for these crucial check-ups…

Banging the drum for the rights of pregnant women is often portrayed as an occupation for the privileged. Defending women’s rights to choose how and where they give birth or insisting that employers make careers possible for working mothers has cleverly been placed in a box marked “entitled”.

You know, those demanding bitches who think they get to have a job and children. Stupid women – only men get to do both.

Four out of five women experience pregnancy and, whether we intend to use it or not, our capacity to become pregnant sits at the root of every woman’s unequal treatment in society. This is not a discussion that needs to stay in the boardroom. Without progress in pregnancy and childbirth we cannot make enough progress in women’s broader rights. And those made more vulnerable because of their precarious low-paid, low-status jobs will continue to find pregnancy a gateway to the food bank.

It’s lose-lose innit. Women get pregnant so don’t hire them for the best jobs, and when women with their low-paid jobs do get pregnant…whoops, it turns out that they’re poor.