As with any effort to help females in the ever present struggle for gender equality, both praise and criticism will arise. No solution can ever be completely satisfactory.
Apple and Google are offering to pay for EVERY SINGLE FEMALE EMPLOYEE
to freeze their eggs and store them if they so choose – a procedure that can cost up to $10,000 with a $500 fee for storage, according to tech crunches article.
As expected, the gesture is receiving quite a bit of flack. Some females claim this is just another excuse for employers to implicitly pressure employees into choosing work over personal life. Apple and Google have worked hard to preemptively refute that claim by offering extended maternity leave, infertility treatments, and adoption assistance. But of course criticism of the employer being too privy about their employee’s personal life has come to light.
The option is out there. It’s not forced upon employees. I am, however, slightly torn because while this is empowering to women, it also makes them think twice about child birth. They know that the option is there to wait and the microscopic level of employee to boss interaction could be slightly more biased than the corporate headquarters plans for them to be.
It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not the final solution, but any female acknowledgment is better than none.
xx Nicki
Head Bitches in Charge 