I Have Over 10 Years' Experience. I'M Really Good At My Job. Then I Got Pregnant…'

Despite maternity discrimination being illegal, almost 80% of working mothers face negative treatment – and 54,000 lose their jobs each year.

- Lucy Tobin

KATE* WAS WORKING for one of London’s biggest insurers when she told her manager she was pregnant. The news didn’t exactly trigger an office-wide popping of non-alcoholic champagne. ‘My boss’s first comment was, “God, you could have borrowed mine first – parenthood is shit”,’ Kate remembers.

‘From then on, I was slowly cut out. New business pitches bypassed me, invites to team drinks seemed to get lost in the post. When I asked my boss about flexible working after maternity leave, he told me he never sees his kids because he works so hard, so I’d have to accept the same.’

When Kate’s son was born, no one at work got in touch. ‘Then my flexible working request was denied – which pretty much forced me out of the company,’ she says. A careerist, with more than a decade of experience at City insurance firms, Kate, now 32, was left feeling desolate. ‘I’m really good at what I do, but being a mum seems to be a dirty word.’

Believe the beaming photos and diversity praising language on the average employer’s website and you’d think maternity discrimination disappeared decades ago. Legally, under the Equality Act 2010, an employee cannot be treated unfairly because they are pregnant, breastfeeding or have recently given birth. Corporates and start-ups alike are keen to boast about being pro-mothers – and parents – in the workplace, with full parental-leave policies, unconscious bias training in recruitment, and ‘returnships’ that aim to bring women who’ve taken time out to raise children back into the workplace.