This Sunday brunch, Apple and Facebook employees will not only be able to ask for their eggs fried over easy or scrambled, they will be able to get them frozen.
Along with maternity leave, female employees now have the opportunity to freeze their eggs in order to have a child at a later, more convenient date.
The process of egg freezing costs up to $10,000 for each round plus additional annual storage fees.
Currently, Facebook offers full compensation for the process, and Apple will be jumping on the bandwagon come January.
I think it’s amazing that this is offered to women in order to empower choice and to allow them to make decisions that are in their best interests, both at home and in the workplace.
Traditionally, women didn’t have the ability to make life-planning decisions when it came to going on maternity leave. But with the new development of egg freezing, it allows them to make an individual choice they once didn’t have.
On a personal level, it’s a great development for women to consider. Whether their careers are off and running and they don’t have time to care for a child or their relationship isn’t stable enough to bring new life into it, it gives women an outlet that allows them the freedom to have a child at a later date.
But on a professional level, I believe the tech industry could not care less about women’s personal choice to delay childbirth.
One might think these companies want to hold on to their valuable female employees, and this might be true. However, I think there’s far more to the equation.
For Apple and Facebook, it’s always been about the money. And it still is.
This announcement is great in convention, but it can also be viewed as a PR stunt on the flip side.
At Facebook, only 30 percent of its employees are women. This costly benefit could gather incentive for women to participate more in the tech industry, for both monetary and job security ?reasons.
The reality is these technology giants are taking advantage of a decision that should purely be personal.
Now, there’s the added factor of promotions. If women decide to stay a few more years in the office and freeze their eggs, then they might expect a raise that would help finance their families.
It could be seen as a strategy for employers to hold their female employees on a leash and tease them with more money in the future that they will most likely never receive.
Along with the monetary enticement, the egg freezing will most likely push women to stick with their job longer, therefore reducing hiring and training costs.
The delaying of childbirth should not be a corporate deal.
I am in no way saying these companies shouldn’t offer the benefit of freezing eggs. I just think it’s tricky to tell where the motives of presenting this benefit are coming from.
For Apple and Facebook, it’s for the corporate advantage. For the employee, it’s an opportunity to have more ?freedom.
Under the surface, it makes the choice even harder for women. Previously, pregnancy had an element of spontaneity that this benefit is ?erasing.
Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I can’t decide. But the female employees shouldn’t feel pressured to delay childbirth if they want to have a child at a young age in a natural manner.
Business shouldn’t get in the way of choosing when to have a child.
It’s not in someone’s best interest to keep working “just because they can.”
Christy Jones, founder of Extended Fertility stated that these new benefits “can help women be more productive human beings.”
Being “productive” shouldn’t just be for the workplace. It shines a negative light on natural childbirth.
Jones essentially states that quitting one’s job to have a child isn’t “productive.”
Productivity is what makes the world go round, and so does having children whenever one pleases.
A woman’s eggs are her own eggs, whether they’re frozen or not. It’s her choice to use them when she wants to, not her boss’.
jlkarl@indiana.edu
