When Joeli Brearley told her boss that she was four months pregnant back in 2013, two days later, she was sacked over voicemail. The boss in question? Not a man as we might immediately presume, but a woman who had also been Joeli’s friend.

Shocked, terrified and with bills to pay, she looked into taking the company to a tribunal, but given that hers was already a high risk pregnancy, was advised against it by her doctor who warned that the stress alone could send her into early labour.

Sadly, Joeli’s story is not unique. Research tells us that a staggering 54,000 women a year lose their jobs for getting pregnant. In fact, when she shared her experience publicly, she was inundated with responses from others who’d been through similar things. 

Outraged at the prevalence of discrimination out there, on International Women’s Day 2015 she founded Pregnant Then Screwed – a charitable organisation that supports women who have faced maternity or pregnancy discrimination by offering mentorship schemes and free legal advice. Since its inception, it has supported tens of thousands of women each year (in 2021, it was a record 81,000) whilst also lobbying the government for change.

In celebration of the release of her new paperback, The Motherhood Penalty: How to stop motherhood being the kiss of death for your career, a book Joeli hopes will make you “absolutely furious” she spoke to AllBright about the stark realities facing mothers in the workplace and what tangible actions need to take place in order to effect change.

Can you share in your own words what the ‘motherhood penalty’ means to you?

The motherhood penalty is the systematic disadvantage that mothers face in the workplace compared to their child free counterparts – in terms of pay, perceived competence and benefits. In other words, as soon as women announce that they’re pregnant, they are more likely to get demoted in some way, or see their career stagnate. Their income tends to reduce as a result, whilst the opposite happens for men. When men have children, they get promoted and enjoy pay raises, whilst women get demoted and their pay decreases. And though the reasons for this are nuanced and complex, a big part of it is due to the bias of employers who think women can’t do the job they were doing previously because they've had a baby. They think [women] are going to be distracted and not committed and that they’re going to want to be elsewhere.

It's also to do with the structural issues women encounter, because our labour market is not set up to work for people with caring responsibilities – especially mothers, who tend to be the main carer of their children, particularly in the early days. By the time a mother’s first child is 12 years old, her hourly rate will have dropped 33% behind her peers, on average.

This is the motherhood penalty.

What do you believe can be done on an institutional, macro level to solve this?

There are two things that can be done very easily, but that are currently not seen as a priority by the government. We need ring fenced paternity leave of about three months that pays at least 80 per cent of salary, and good quality, affordable childcare. If we had a childcare system that was available to every child and that worked for every type of working pattern, we'd see the motherhood penalty and the bias held by employers reduced enormously.

In countries that have incorporated this [for example] Iceland, there are much smaller gender pay gaps and a more equal balance of domestic labour, resulting in happier families.

What problems are women coming to Pregnant Then Screwed with again and again?

The main one tends to be that from the moment a woman says she's pregnant, she experiences subtle harassment and discrimination. This will be things like personal development reviews going from excellent to substandard in the blink of an eye and work ethic and quality being criticised and called into question. It’s often things that are hard to put your finger on.

We often hear of bullying and harassment from colleagues as well, because we know that a large proportion of employees also harbour beliefs that once a woman is pregnant, she’s not as competent, is more distracted and is potentially going to be a burden to the business.

Employers are often too savvy to just sack women or make them redundant, as they know they could end up in tribunal, so will instead try to find ways to make pregnant women leave of their own accord by stripping them of their confidence.

We often assume it’s just male bosses doing this as we live in a patriarchal system. Are women coming to you for advice about their female bosses as well?

It’s definitely not a gender thing. It was a woman who discriminated against me – someone I knew very well. I’d like to say that it’s mostly women who don’t have children who are more likely to judge and discriminate but it’s other mothers too. We are all victims of the patriarchy, after all.

Do you feel the pandemic – and the subsequent increase in flexible working - has made the situation for mothers better or worse?

There’s no definitive answer to this. One of the big issues is that the mental health of mothers has really deteriorated – particularly amongst those who were having to home school their children whilst working a full time job.

Everyone points to the ‘pro’ of more home working, which has certainly meant that women have been more able to manage their personal and professional obligations, but now that employers are asking people to come back to the office, it’s back to square one. We lost 3,000 childcare providers between January and July 2021 because they couldn’t afford to stay open and the government cut their funding. This has skyrocketed the prices, which are then passed on to the parents, and women are now desperately trying to create a sort of patchwork of childcare.

Moving forward, there’s also the risk that if employees get to decide when and how often they come into the office, employers will develop a proximity bias, favouring those who are on site more regularly. As it’ll be mostly mothers and people with disabilities who benefit from working from home, they are also the most likely to not only miss out on opportunities, but face further discrimination.

How can employers and colleagues of pregnant women be more supportive?

When they come back to work, just ask them what they need! Then put money into the support systems they ask for. We run a Culture Change Lab at Pregnant Then Screwed that lasts between eight months and a year. This is to help employers and employees address their biases and to understand the business reasons why having more women in senior leadership roles is more profitable. Because if you want to sell to women, you need women in leadership roles and if you want women in leadership roles, you need to make it easy for them to stay in their jobs once they have children.

What do you hope will be the lasting message of your book, The Motherhood Penalty?

I’d like women who are reading it to realise that if they’re being discriminated against, it’s not their fault. It’s down to the system, it’s not about them, and that system could work differently. I hope that it gives women the confidence to challenge discrimination when it arises. To not accept that if they get demoted or if they have a pay cut, they’re just lucky to still have a job. The book lays out all the skills women learn from becoming mothers and being on maternity leave, many of which are akin to an elite training course for management. I hope women read it and, recognising these skills within themselves, return to work feeling confident and more empowered.

Obviously on the other side, I’d like people to read it and get angry. I want people to realise we don’t have to put up with this any longer – because if things can change in other countries, why on Earth can’t they change here, too?

Pregnant Then Screwed is currently campaigning to raise £50,000 to increase the capacity of their mentor and helpline services and to improve the diversity of its community by working with more disabled women, single mothers and BAME women. To donate, click the link here or to read more about the charity or to buy the book, head to the website here.