First of all, the level of assumption in here on the part of some in terms of what Dawn should or should not have done — having children, not having children, having a partner, finding a partner , “choosing” to be a parent or not— is simply staggering. Amazing insensitivity to just being a human being and extremely sexist and gender biased.
Second of all, I had to ponder this for a while. In the end, I don’t see this as being gender bias, but I do see it as gender related due to how gender and familial roles translate into the workplace.
The root issue here I see as trust. I’ve worked inside of about 40–50 US companies, most of them Fortune 500, and companies as a whole have a high degree of distrust over expenses that occur inside the home and having those expenses linked in some way with work simply because there is so much room for fraudulent expenses.
If we were privy to the emails exchanged by Dawn with finance, I can almost guarantee you the topic of those emails would almost invariably be related to validating the actual spend. Was she in fact being charged $20/hour for sitting or was it $15/hour and she’s pocketing the difference? Did she concoct a scheme whereby a niece, who otherwise would have done it for free, “charged” $20/hour and they made a nice dinner of out that $200?
I mean, company imaginations run wild and to a large extent I can’t blame them. Too many employees think nothing of robbing the company through fraudulent expenses, and it’s even easier for individuals to “justify” when the company culture stinks.
With the men? Their expense is easy to validate. Here’s the bill from the hotel, their stay was pre-approved by management… done. No quibbles whatsoever. The issue is trust not gender primarily. She herself indicated they willingly paid for her expenses with her child likely because those expenses are verifiable. Yes, it’s progressive, but it’s also easily verifiable… done.
The solution? I think expenses originating out of the home should have an exception process with the explanation linked to understanding these types of expenses being somewhat gender related. “We realize with working moms, occasionally there will be expenses that contradict the norm. Therefore, there is a process working moms or dads can go through to…” and create a process to allows for the possibility. This tips the hat to there being some gender relationship to types of expenses and allows for the possibility they can be covered through a formalized exception process. It shows sensitivity to gender while at the same time guarding the company’s position regarding frivolous or fraudulent expenses.
Had a process like this already been in place, going back to her moment of pause, it’s likely she never would have paused at all. She would have calculated the cost, gotten her home expenses pre-approved, and never had to debate for more than a moment. To that end, companies not anticipating and providing process for these needs, I do agree there is gender bias.
