Alex Berke Quoted in New York Times Article on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

A significant gender discrimination lawsuit brought by the former COO against her former employer, Pintrerest, at the end of last year may have hiring and diversity ramifications far beyond the doors of the Silicon Valley organization.

According to the latest analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pandemic and lockdowns continue to have an outsize effect on women’s employment in the U.S. with fewer than half (44.6%) of the jobs women lost between February and December returning. Another way of looking at it is that roughly 12 million jobs simply disappeared. Or, as Representative Katie Porter tweeted, “Women. Accounted. For. All. The. Losses.”

On the heels of some important wins for paid leave in the 2020 election, paid maternity leave has found a new supporter. One who you might not have expected: conservative co-host of The View Megan McCain. The challenge is, as Monica Hesse notes, “how we can speed up this process so that it doesn’t require every leave-denier to personally birth a child before they also get on board.”