‘Why is it only natural for the mother to care?’, asks the Labor judge – 05/13/2023 – Market

Convention 156 of the ILO (International Labor Organization) is in the process of being ratified by the Brazilian government. Entitled “Equal Opportunities and Treatment for Men and Women”, the document was prepared more than 40 years ago, in 1981, with the proposal to combat discrimination in the workplace related to family responsibilities. Family demands cannot be an obstacle to full employment and professional development.

The objective is to make it clear to employers that both men and women with dependents have family obligations that interfere with their professional lives. In other words, both are responsible for the children – which makes it natural for men to try to fit activities such as picking up their children from school, taking them to the doctor, participating in school meetings or having to be absent from work in their routine. the child gets sick. Tasks traditionally associated with mothers.

“This involves a profound change in mentality, which unfortunately cannot be achieved overnight”, says Patrícia Maeda, regional Labor judge of the 15th Region and assistant judge of the presidency of the TST (Superior Labor Court). “There is a lot of discrimination in the work environment involving working mothers. They need to be absent from time to time, because they are the ones responsible for caring for their children, which compromises their performance and the achievement of career opportunities”, affirm.

“But the question that society as a whole needs to ask is: why is it only natural for mothers to take care of themselves? Why isn’t the father charged for it too?”, he asks. “As society decrees that it is natural for the mother to care, it is also decreeing that it is natural for her to bear the overload that this care involves”, says the magistrate, PhD in Labor Law from the Faculty of Law of USP (University of São Paulo), who has already served as a labor inspector. Patrícia felt this discrimination within her own family.

“My husband and I had two daughters, who are now 17 and 20 years old. Whenever I was away on a business trip, he was responsible for both of them, which is natural. But my mother and my aunts called him ‘poor thing’ , for being alone with the children. When the opposite happened, nobody said the same about me”, she says, emphasizing that, even in the Labor Court, many women fail to be promoted due to the lack of availability for displacement.

“If a man leaves his family to work in another city, he is considered ‘hardworking’, he is doing everything for his family. But if a woman takes the same attitude, she is criticized, after all, ‘how dare she leave her children?’ , compares Patrícia, author of the book “Workers from Brazil, unite!: the participation of women in the construction of the social rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution of 1988” (Editora Letramento, 2021).

The magistrate points out, however, that the State must also fulfill its part in guaranteeing care, with the wide offer of day care centers and full-time schools. “But that was never fulfilled,” she says.

In addition to ratifying ILO Convention 156, Brazil has just approved Law 14,457/2022, which came into force in September, with the aim of ensuring not only that the labor market is more inclusive and attentive to women, but also that the environment is equitable and safe. “The law introduces the idea of ​​parenting, something new in the Brazilian legal system. The law considers the flexibilization of working hours for child care, for both sexes. “It’s the key to start thinking about isonomy in the labor market in terms of gender.”

In the opinion of Lorena Hakak, economics professor at UFABC (Federal University of ABC) and president of the Family and Gender Economy Society (GeFam), Brazilian law (which grants 120 days of maternity leave and five days of paternity) reinforces a social norm that considers the child as belonging only to the mother.

“There are a series of studies, worldwide, which point out that extended paternity leave not only strengthens the father’s bond with the child, but also allows women not to be penalized in the labor market”, says Lorena.

The specialist is part of a working group, created last month at the Women’s Secretariat of the Chamber of Deputies, with the participation of members of civil society, businessmen and parliamentarians, to discuss the expansion of paternity leave in Brazil. The objective is to reduce inequalities between men and women in the labor market and encourage greater parental involvement in child care.

‘But why do I have to help, if she has her mother?’

To encourage parents to take a more active role in childcare, some companies are offering extended parental leave. It is a way to promote gender equality and a more equal division of unpaid care and household chores within families.

Pharmaceutical Sanofi, a French multinational that owns the Medley brand, is one of those companies. “It took a lot of mobilization to make the employees understand that the father is not the one who helps the mother, the father is the one who creates”, says Neila Lopes, diversity and culture executive at Sanofi. The company adopted paid paternity leave of up to six months in 2020 and realized that it needed to make adjustments to the program.

“In general, employees in the administrative area wondered why they would have to go on extended leave, since the woman had her mother or someone in the family to help her at this time”, says Neila, reinforcing that the issue in this point was much more cultural.

“Already on our factory floor, we realized that the issue was different: the man at home would lose the food allowance, which meant a greater expense in the household budget”. The company started to grant the benefit also during the period of extended paternity leave.

According to Neila, in the first years of the program, only 48% of men joined. “This year, we are already at 73%. Our global goal is to reach 80% in 2025”, she says. Between 2020 and 2022, 134 employees took paternity leave at Sanofi in the country.

At Rhodia Brasil, controlled by the Belgian multinational Solvay, 40 parents took advantage of four-month paid leave two years ago. Among them is chemist Felipe Rocha, the company’s sales and marketing manager, who has just given birth to Cecília, who is 20 days old, his first daughter. Women are a minority at Rhodia Brasil: they represent 20% of the 1,700 employees, accounting for 33% of leadership positions.

The co-parental leave policy (maternity, paternity and adoption leave) is part of the portfolio of benefits implemented by Solvay within its ESG goals (of good environmental, social and corporate governance practices). “We want everyone who works with us to have the best balance between professional obligations and family commitments”, says Fernanda Zanetti, human resources executive at Solvay in Latin America. To date, 400 employees worldwide have taken paternity leave. There are a total of 21 thousand employees.

At the American multinational Haleon, which manufactures the antacid Eno, the six-month paid leave for parents began to take effect this year in Brazil. “This action reflects our commitment to offering equal opportunities and an inclusive environment”, says Marta Martins, Haleon’s HR director for Latin America. The company has around 1,000 employees in the country, 52% of whom are women. They occupy two-thirds of the leadership positions in the company.

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