EEOC Clarifies Prohibition on Maternal Profiling

By NOW Staff

May 30, 2007

Although the Supreme Court has pushed us backward on remedies for pay discrimination, we've had a small victory from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Family responsibility discrimination, what we call "maternal profiling," is pervasive in the workplace, where assumptions about mothers and caregivers frequently affect their salary, raises, and job opportunities.

"These assumptions are deeply engrained in stereotypes about women as caregivers, and they affect the pay and employment status of millions of women, and some men as well," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "This is discrimination, pure and simple, and it contributes to the enormous wage gap between mothers and non-mothers."

Gandy raised this issue in a late-January meeting with new EEOC Commissioner Christine Griffin, and NOW welcomes the new "enforcement guidance" that tells employers this kind of discrimination is against the law. The EEOC statement makes it clear that caregivers must be treated like any other employees, and that employers can't base job decisions on unspoken assumptions about how women or other caregivers will behave.