Glass Ceiling or Glass Womb?

I love Sheryl Sandberg. I love that someone like her is out there inspiring young women to believe that the world is at their feet. That there is nothing standing in their way except fear. Challenging them to seek out opportunities for themselves. Teaching them that there is no #glass ceiling and that if they are ballsy, confident and competent they will achieve great things.

While acceding that Sheryl Sandberg had done great things in raising awareness, continuing the cause and encouraging women to self-reflect, the author of this article raises the challenge of the enforced career break as being a major obstacle to career progression from which women may never fully recover.

In fact, she goes further and argues that paid parental leave is a disservice to women. Many might say that is heresy and women have fought long and hard to have time out from their career to birth and raise children without losing their jobs as a result of such a decision. By teh same toke, she has some compelling figures to back her claim.

I don’t for a minute think anyone would argue that a woman should lose her job due to maternoty yet how uch of a negative impact does a career break have? Do those who take a career break (eg long service leave) to study for a higher qualification suffer similarly?

This article raises an interesting topic that deserves more focus.