Weekly News Update

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  • The New York Times considered courtroom fashion choices of famous female defendants.
  • Fashionista offered expert advice on consigning your clothes.
  • Into The Gloss highlighted the makeup routine of actress June Diane Raphael.
  • Ask a Manager has compiled a sortable Google spreadsheet of salaries — 26,000 and counting. (You can submit your own salary details online.)
  • NPR affiliate KQED detailed the Equal Rights Amendment following a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
  • Fast Company provided reasons employers should offer fertility benefits.
  • The Atlantic shared how wireless headphones make working in a wall-less office a little more bearable.
  • The Lily explored why the majority of Congress's top staff members are men.
  • The Washington Post reported that a high-ranking attorney sued her former employer for $20 million for sexist actions, including asking her to serve cake to male coworkers who were junior to her.
  • The Washington Post also suggested how adding even a little exercise into your routine can make a difference.
  • The New York Times also explained how putting down your phone could help you live longer.
  • Your Laugh of the Week: McSweeney's described a nightmare company — at least you don't work here (hopefully).

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17 Comments

  1. “Fast Company provided reasons employers should offer fertility benefits.”

    Cynically, it’s cheaper for companies to offer egg freezing than for them to offer maternity coverage. Hire on a 33-year-old, pay her to freeze her eggs, and then she moves on 3-5 years later without having used a maternity benefit – well, that saves the company money.

    1. +1. The other thing I hate about those benefits is that they never talk about the success rate of conceiving from egg freezing. It’s like, use this benefit to ensure you can have kids later and keep working crazy hours for us now. And then the company doesn’t care that you can’t successfully have kids later

      1. “It’s like, use this benefit to ensure you can have kids later and keep working crazy hours for us now.”

        I’m the Anon above… and YES, this is exactly what I was trying to say.

      2. Yes! And I NEVER see or hear stories about women successfully having children with eggs that were frozen years ago. I know very little about it, but my understanding is that it’s a long shot. It’s so weird when people talk about it as “peace of mind” or “a great option” because it seems like a total gamble.

        1. I got curious and looked:

          “…the proportion of frozen eggs which leads to a live birth among women under 36 is 8.2%, while among those aged 36 to 39 this dips to 3.3%.”

          Even worse than I thought. Link to follow.

        2. I think it’s gotten better in recent years because they’ve developed better techniques. My sense is that a lot of women wait too long – eggs frozen when you’re in your late 30s aren’t necessarily going to be great quality. Ideally, you’d freeze eggs when you’re 22.

      3. Exactly, this. Don’t worry about having kids soon, we have fertility benefits! Keep working like crazy for ten more years! And you can’t leave us because those other employers don’t offer fertility benefits that you’ll definitely need by the time you decide it’s OK to have kids!

        1. This is a SERIOUS stretch. Like, okay, lots of employers are terrible so I’m sure someone somewhere has pulled that . But I know ZERO women who have delayed child bearing because their employer offers fertility benefits. I know tons of women who either needed fertility treatments in their late 20s or early 30s — you know, peak childbearing years — or who just found a partner later in life. So they should have to go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt or gut their savings just in case a MEDICAL benefit offered by the company might lead to some other woman delaying having kids?

          No. Infertility is a medical condition and should be covered by health insurance.

          1. I know many women and have four close friends who have delayed the process of starting a family, including spending time to find a partner, because they believe that the window in which childbearing is possible has been extended by new scientific methods. I was in that camp as well until recently. I get it. My job and career are way more interesting than pumping and changing diapers. I abhor dating. The promise that I can take my sweet time to figure this out (you know, like a man) and maybe it will just happen on its own is extremely tempting.

          2. Also agree that fertility benefits should be universally offered as part of comprehensive health insurance. Unfortunately, our employers dictate what’s in our health insurance. So they get to use health insurance as talent retention and productivity tools.

    2. Eh, maybe some companies do that, but I just spend $45k on IVF. I would be incredibly loyal to a company that offered fertility benefits, so I would see it as a talent retention strategy, personally.

    3. Are they offering fertility benefits or egg freezing? Those are two different things

      1. My former big consulting employer offered either $10k/yr or $15k/yr in fertility assistance. It was definitely done for employee retention and as a great ‘stat’ for the yearly working mother/INC/fortune/etc. ‘best places to work’ awards that they competed for. Regardless – I did know people who took advantage of it and it did inspire a lot of loyalty.

    4. The focus of this article was on fertility benefits, not egg freezing, though. I agree with Anon Lawyer it’s a talent retention strategy. If you pursue fertility treatments, having coverage can increase your overall comp by tens of thousands of dollars. The idea that these companies are putting policies in place to support employees at all stages of building their families & trying to take away some of the secrecy/shame around this is nice.

    5. I once asked the manageing partner about the firm providing fertility benefits, so Frank later came by and offered “to help out” which meant that he would be more then willing to inseminate me either directly, or as an artificial inseminated sperm donor. I told him no thanks, on both counts. DOUBEL FOOEY!

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