UNVEILING INEQUALITY - EXPLORING THE MOTHERHOOD PENALTY | Manisha Awhale | TEDxILSLaw

Challenges Faced by Working Mothers

• Motherhood penalty: pay gaps, slower promotions, limited opportunities.
• Societal expectations prioritize motherhood over career, leading to inefficiency, guilt, and diminished career prospects.
• Lack of data and research on challenges faced by pregnant women and mothers in the workplace.
• Disproportionate responsibility for childcare and household tasks falls on mothers, leading to guilt and inadequacy.
• Fathers often play a diminished role in childcare and household responsibilities, contributing to the burden on mothers.
• Societal norms blame mothers for any perceived shortcomings in their children's upbringing or well-being.
• Guilt ingrained in mothers despite support systems like house help and family.
• Some women minimize work efforts to prioritize childcare, leading to a sense of survival rather than thriving.
• Need for deeper exploration of challenges faced by working mothers, particularly in time management and balancing work and family.

Societal Shift from Motherhood to Parenthood

• Speaker emphasizes need for societal shift from motherhood to parenthood, involving both men and women in child-rearing responsibilities.
• Highlights gender pay gap and disproportionate burden of unpaid labor on women.
• Criticizes lack of support for working mothers in terms of infrastructure, job security, and discrimination protection.
• Addresses declining fertility rates in developed countries, suggests redefining progress and development to address this issue.
• Stresses importance of making child-rearing a societal responsibility and truly empowering women, not just for regulatory compliance.
• Concludes by emphasizing the need to celebrate working mothers and facilitate a more equitable and inclusive society.