Lack of support is wrecking the mental health of working mothers (Metro)

Lack of support is wrecking the mental health of working mothers

Employers who want to drive someone out without explicitly firing them have many ways to make the working life and the mental health of a pregnant woman or new mum hellish.

Full article

Metro opinion editorial by Dr. Ann Olivarius.

Extract:

Women give birth and raise children in the environment created by our politics.

And our attitudes to work and employment are creating a very real psychiatric trauma for many mothers trying to do both.  

Right now a combination of entrenched sex discrimination at work, a pandemic that has hit women’s jobs harder than men’s and an ongoing crisis in care is causing working mothers’ mental health to plummet. 

We need women-centred mental health support systems that understand and respond to the specific female experience. We also need to ensure that workers understand their rights, that employees enforce them, and that the government understands gender-blind policy-making has perversely discriminatory effects.