Why 'Are You Going to Work After the Baby Comes?' is Always Offensive and Sexist

Want a simple way to degrade the work all women do, whether paid and outside the home or unpaid and within the home? Ask a pregnant woman if she's going to keep working after the baby arrives.

I know, I know. You're just making conversation. You're curious. You're trying to be nice. The problem is that your "niceness" and "idle conversation" are premised on the notion that women who can quit working outside the home will, and that women who stay home with their children don't work. People don't ask men this question. That's what makes it sexist.




Why Don't People Ask Men if They're Going to Keep Working When the Baby Comes?
It's hard to make it through adolescence without learning about the pay gap or the pressure women face to prioritize motherhood over work. But I never really knew how dismissive we are of women's work until my husband and I started building our lives and careers.

Starting a law practice is grueling, thankless work that requires lots of money. Civil rights litigation is expensive, and it takes years of hard work before you see a single paycheck. So in those first years of his career, I was the primary breadwinner. It was a simple matter of equity. We both worked hard, but he wasn't getting paid, so I supported him until the money started rolling in.

The strangest thing kept happening, though. Even though I was making more money than he was, people assumed that he was the primary breadwinner--and often, that he was the only breadwinner. When I posted photos of vacations on Facebook, people would comment on how lucky I was that Jeff "treated" me. When I occasionally splurged on a designer dress or expensive new shoes, people would sometimes be so bold as to thank Jeff for me by commenting on the photo with comments like, "Thanks, hubby!"

Now the roles have reversed. Jeff makes more money than I will ever make, and the patronizing comments about our careers have escalated.

What's really sad is that, as part of our ongoing commitment to equality, we really try to support one another's careers. When he teaches a seminar, I try to go. I send him news stories related to his law practice, help him prepare for oral arguments, and edit his briefs. He shares my work with colleagues, and helps me understand court cases relevant to news stories I write. When he supports me, it's "sweet," and sometimes treated as a sign that I can't do things on my own. When I show up to support him, people treat me like a trophy wife. They talk down to me. They are stunned to learn that I work.

So it came as no surprise that, as soon as I got pregnant, people started asking me if I was going to keep working. That doesn't mean it stung any less. I love my work. I think it's important to society, and I know it's important to me. Every time someone asks me if I'm going to keep working, I hear a proclamation that my work is far less important than my role as a mother. There's a subtle implication that good mothers don't work, too--at least not if they can avoid it.

Lest you doubt that this is sexist, no one has ever asked Jeff if he's going to keep working. Never. Not once.

The Nasty Assumptions Inherent in Asking Women if They're Going to Work 
I can already hear some readers jumping in to correct me. "Well, actually," they'd say (all such statements begin with a pedantic correction) "some women do have jobs that are less important than their husband's." Yes. Ok. Some women make less money, too. There are lots of very valid reasons women opt to quit working outside the home.

The problem is that when you ask whether a woman is going to keep working, there are a number of ugly assumptions and rude questions preloaded into the initial question:

• The assumption that women who can afford to quit working should. When you ask a woman if she's going to keep working, one of the things you're asking is whether she can afford to do so. 
• The assumption that, if someone is going to stay home with the baby, it's going to be the woman. 
• The assumption that the woman's work is less important than her husband's.
• The assumption that all women want to stay home. Maybe her job isn't amazing. Maybe she doesn't make a ton of money at it. That alone is still not reason to stay home with the baby. 

When you ask a woman if she's going to work, you're not just being sexist. You're being classist. You're prying into her finances. You're subjecting her to your judgment of what good mothers do and do not do. 

Every Mother is a Working Woman 
Men love to pretend that society is now equal and that women just make different choices, even though the research doesn't support this claim. We know, for example, that the gender pay gap persists even when women have the same education and are in the same professions as men, and even when they work the same hours. 

It's just that it's a lot more comfortable to tell ourselves women are different, special, nurturing. Not victims of oppression. They WANT to spend their lives with babies. Mopping fulfills them! Endless craft projects are all they need to feel happy! Cleaning up spit-up and changing the diaper pail bring every woman great joy!

It doesn't hurt that this narrative allows men to continue to get away with doing significantly less than their fair share around the house.

But what's most problematic about it is the way the "Will you quit working?" narrative completely negates the value of the work stay-at-home mothers do. Mothering is work. Hard work. Just ask someone who's spent a few weeks with bloody nipples and a case of mastitis trying to master breastfeeding while tending to a toddler with an ear infection and planning healthy, nutritious meals.

Stay-at-home motherhood is demanding, exhausting, and intellectually taxing. Mothers who stay at home with their children never get a break from their day jobs; at the end of everyone else's work day, they're still cleaning up vomit and changing diapers. And they're usually doing it even though hubby is home, done with his work day, and perfectly capable of helping her out.

We don't want to admit this, because then we have to actually give women credit for the work they do inside the home. And that makes it a lot more difficult to continue to support a social structure built upon women's free labor.

My mother, who stayed at home with me when I was little and who then returned to her career in mental health (and who, incidentally, revolutionized the child welfare system in my county) used to have an old 1970s button on our refrigerator: "Every woman is a working woman."

Why is that so hard for us to accept, no matter how many scientific studies tell us women work longer and harder than men to earn less, and in spite of an avalanche of research showing that even when women work full-time, they do significantly more housework and caregiving than men?

One simple reason: because admitting that all women work, and that the overwhelming majority do substantially more caregiving than men, means admitting that men buy their leisure time with their partners' exhaustion. 

Why 'Meaning Well' Isn't Enough
What makes gender stereotypes so pervasive is that we often hold them without even realizing it. I'm as guilty as the next person. I've been a feminist for my entire life. I am painfully aware of the competing demands on women's time, the challenges of getting ahead professionally when planning for motherhood. Yet I do it, too.

I have a colleague I've known for years. I don't know him well, but we're friendly enough to chat at conferences, and I really like his kids. I see his wife at a conference at least once a year, and always ask her about the kids. Never about work.

That's because I assumed she was a stay-at-home mom.

But I recently Googled her so I could mail her something. I needed to know whether she had a different last name from her husband. That's when I learned that she is a professor who has never not worked outside the home. Not only that, but her specialization is work-family conflict. She has published dozens of pieces on the very stereotype I applied to her.

Oops.

There are a number of reasons I assumed she doesn't work outside the home. All of them are sexist. Her husband makes good money, so I figured she didn't "need" to work. I bought into the notion that men work for fulfillment while women work for money, even though I know it's not true. I always see her, not him, tending to their children at conferences. Which makes sense, given that they're his work events, and not hers. Rather than mentally noting this fact, I simply assumed she is always the primary caregiver.

Perhaps worst of all, she is pretty. And really, really sweet. I know that these two traits factored into my assessment, too.

I had good intentions. I didn't mean to be sexist, and my acquaintance's wife will probably never know of my assumption. But she probably suspects it. After all, I'm a thoughtful, intelligent, feminist writer in the presence of another thoughtful, intelligent, feminist writer. And all I've ever done is ask her about her kids. It's a small injustice, but these sorts of petty misdeeds add up. They steadily erode a person's sense of self. Perhaps they even help explain why my acquaintance's wife never chimed into conversations with information about her professional experiences. Perhaps she--like me, and like many other working women--has learned from experience that people simply don't take her career seriously. So what's the point of subjecting yourself to degradation by talking about your job, only to have it belittled?

Better to just stay quiet and let them think you're a housewife.