Employers fire mothers-to-be

I was reading The Toronto Star this morning while having coffee, and I came across this article, I thought i'd share it with you

Recession used as excuse for surge in pink slips

Human rights advocates are seeing an alarming surge in cases of pregnant women being fired by "Neanderthal" employers across Ontario, who claim hard times are the cause.

What's especially stunning, they say, is how brazen some bosses are, almost 50 years after Ontario enacted the Human Rights Code to prevent such discrimination.

"We actually have an email from one employer saying, `Sorry, but with your little bundle, I don't think we'll be able to (re)hire you. We want a permanent solution,'" says Consuelo Rubio, manager of client services for Ontario's Human Rights Legal Support Centre, an independent agency funded by the province to provide free legal services to people experiencing discrimination.

The firings are in all sectors: "It's happening to women in senior positions and women in minimum-wage jobs," says Katherine Laird, executive director of the centre, who says she hasn't seen this level of discrimination through two previous recessions and 30 years in the human rights field.

"It's outrageous and illegal," Laird says.

The spike in calls from pregnant women who are frightened for their jobs, can't nail down return-to-work dates or have been told there will be no job waiting for them at the end of their maternity leave, started last fall. But they hit "nightmare" levels in January, says Rubio, and are now averaging 10 to 15 calls a week – accounting for about 10 per cent of all calls from workers inquiring about their rights.

"I thought I was the only person this was happening to," says Brandi Mather, 21, a housekeeper at an Orillia hotel who was laid off Jan. 19, ostensibly because of a lack of work. She later learned her boss had overhead co-workers talking about her pregnancy. Mather had hoped to return to work this month, but found out a replacement worker had been hired in the meantime.

Her boss was quite upfront, saying it was because of the pregnancy. But the boss backtracked when she realized Mather had checked out her legal rights and then said it was because her work was shoddy.

Most firings seem to occur soon after women announce they are pregnant, says Rubio. That puts women's maternity leave benefits at risk, since to qualify for full benefits they must work 600 hours within the 52 weeks before filing.

"I need 435 more hours," says Mather, who also has a 2-year-old daughter and had been working part-time while studying to be a pharmacy assistant. Her pregnancy is starting to show, which has made it impossible to get another job.

"I don't want to go on welfare, but if that's what I have to do, that's what I have to do. I've tried really hard not to do that because I know there are other people who need it."

Until Dec. 4, dental assistant Ann Dunn split her work week between two dentists, one in Courtice and one in Bowmanville. At 10 a.m. she told the Bowmanville dentist she was pregnant. A few hours later she was given a $300 gift certificate to The Bay and told her one-day-a-week job was over.

To her gratitude, the other dentist was so shocked by the move he took her on staff early enough before her son, Michael, was born April 1 to allow her to qualify for maternity benefits. She's filed a claim with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and is seeking $10,000 in damages.

"If he had said to me, `Things are getting slow in the office and we don't have a lot of hours. Just finish off your three months,' I would have said, `That's fine.' But I didn't have that option. The only option I had was the gift card."

The dentist hired a replacement.

The centre is also hearing from pregnant women who work on commission but simply aren't being given any work or sales calls to make.

"Employers are crying about the recession and saying, `This is so terrible for us,'" says Rubio. "Well, what about all these workers who are going through the financial crisis too? The recession is not only affecting employers, it's affecting mothers with children, it's affecting disabled people – even more so because a lot of these people can be even more vulnerable financially."

The centre is also fielding more calls from injured workers and disabled people – who have always accounted for the vast majority of inquiries – and are seeing troubling signs on that front as well, especially among people who work for hard-hit auto-parts manufacturers, some of them unionized shops.

Human-rights advocates are investigating a Peterborough firm that produces car bumpers and other plastic parts. It laid off 18 workers back in January – every one of whom had at some point claimed disability benefits or were on modified work assignments to allow them to do less strenuous work to cope with their injury.

Meanwhile, 18 "healthy" workers were called back from layoffs.

"The Human Rights Code is supposed to be about recognizing the worth and dignity of every person – and sometimes the real test of an employer's commitment comes when economic times are tough," says Kate Sellar, a lawyer with the centre.

"Bad economic times aren't a licence for employers to discriminate against pregnant women and workers with disabilities."

Cup size has more than one meaning at topless Maine coffeehouse.

Topless cafe in Maine gives neighbours "the jitters"


Vassalboro, Maine's newest coffee shop is garnering national attention for something other than its $3 a cup coffee. At the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, the waitresses are, well, topless.

The Servers are topless at the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, which opened its doors Monday on a busy road in Vassalboro. A sign outside says, "Over 18 only." Another says, "No cameras, no touching, cash only."

On Tuesday, two men sipped coffee at a booth while three topless waitresses and a bare-chested waiter stood nearby. Topless waitress Susie Wiley said men, women and couples have stopped by.

The coffee shop raised the ire of dozens of residents when it went before the town planning board last month. Town officials said the coffee shop met the letter of the law.

The outside windows were covered with promotional posters for New England Coffee. Up the entrance ramp to the front door, another sign: "Over 18 only" -- and another at the door: "No cameras, no touching, cash only." A man in a white dress shirt kept watch at the front door.

Inside, two men sipped coffee at their booth; the rest of the tables were empty. There are 15 tables, with room enough for 58 people.

On Tuesday, inside were three topless women, one topless man and owner Donald Crabtree in a dress shirt and tie. Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" was playing.

Brothers Dick and Rene Brochu of Augusta, ages 60 and 59, said they decided to stop by the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop after hearing about it from friends. Both men are retired.

"I really hope it works," Dick Brochu said of the business. "It's different. I kind of like it. If you don't like it, I say don't come in, stay away."

Implying that criticism of the coffee shop has been overblown, Rene Brochu said, "The evil is in your head."

To the chagrin of some residents, the shop on Belfast Avenue opened its doors Monday. More than 50 opponents turned out for Planning Board hearings in January, but despite complaints, town officials said there was nothing they could do to stop Crabtree from opening the business.

The coffee shop is in a former motel, which has been the site of many businesses in the last several years, and is located on a sparse stretch of Route 3 just over the Augusta line. It was most recently Mac Daddy's Pub at the Fat Cat Grille, which closed several years ago.

Eight customers -- all men -- stopped by the coffee shop between 10 and 11:15 a.m. Tuesday. Staff members estimated they had between 50 and 60 customers on Monday, despite a snowstorm; of those customers, about eight were women, they said.

Aside from the Brochu brothers, the other customers in the shop Tuesday morning declined to give their names or comment.

Topless waitress Susie Wiley, 23, of Farmingdale, said she went for the job because it's "something different" and said she's worked in coffee shops since she was a teenager.

Asked whether the shop is degrading to women, Wiley said, "No, I love it. I find it very empowering, not degrading."

For now, the menu at the shop is slim: Just cups of New England Coffee ($3 each) and donuts made from Chase Farm Bakery in Whitefield ($2 each). Crabtree said he may offer more food if business picks up.

Elvis Thompson, 32, of Brunswick, was the lone male waiter at the coffee shop Tuesday morning, though he said there are two other male waiters.

Thompson, topless and wearing black boots and black shorts, said he was laid off from another job two weeks ago and then saw an advertisement for the coffee shop.

During the first day, Monday, Thompson said he waited on two ladies, one of whom told him she had been opposed to the business but now she thinks it's great.

Topless waitress Kris Kelley, 43, of Windham, said her previous restaurant experience was managing a pizzeria in Hawaii.

Kelley said criticism of the shop is "ridiculous."

"It's just a body part," she said. "There are more serious issues to worry about in this country than something like this."

Kelley said she gets along with all her co-workers and customers: "We're one big happy family."

Resident Paula Furbush, who was critical of the coffee shop when it was proposed to the Planning Board, said she had not realized the business had opened.

"I definitely think it's not a good idea. I've lived in town my whole life and we've never had anything like this," Furbush said.

Lisa Breton, a resident for 23 years, said she was surprised the coffee shop opened up.

"I don't believe it's going to pan out, not in a small community like this," Breton said. "People move to these small towns because they don't want to deal with bars and adult video stores and a topless coffee shop. It's important for towns to have an ordinance written so things like this can't happen."

Crabtree said he does not pay his staff a regular wage; all their earnings come from customer tips, mostly ranging from $5 to $20.

On Tuesday morning, Kelley brought coffee to a male customer, who gulped down about half of the cup during a couple minutes, handed Kelley a $100 bill and left without saying a word.

Topless waitress Ginni Labree, 34, of Palermo, wore fluorescent electric pink nail polish and has a tattoo of a rose on her arm. Labree said she has previous experience as a store manager and used to work in dance clubs.

Although "most people have been respectful," Labree said she did encounter inappropriate behavior on Monday when an intoxicated couple came in. The male attempted to touch her, but she backed away. "I told them, 'Hey, we can't touch.'" Labree said she doesn't mind hugging customers or shaking hands.

Labree said she enjoys chatting with people and she has received many compliments from customers, such as "you're pretty, nice body, nice tattoos and you're very colorful."

"I haven't had anybody leave without a smile yet," she said.

Crabtree said he interviewed 150 people for the positions and narrowed the field to 10. Crabtree said he selected people who were the friendliest and comfortable being topless.

"We want to keep the girls respectable, not trashy," said Crabtree, who lives in the motel attached to the shop. "The biggest thing is keeping people happy."

Men see bikini-clad women as objects: Psychologists

It may seem pretty obvious to say that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, But now there's actual scientific evidence to back it up.

New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.

The research was presented this week by Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," she says.

Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it's a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.

"They're not fully conscious responses, and so people don't know the extent to which they're being influenced," Fiske said. "It's important to recognize the effects."

The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton University, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor "benevolent" sexism, which includes the belief that a woman's place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.

In the men who scored highest on hostile sexism, the part of the brain associated with analyzing another person's thoughts, feelings and intentions was inactive while viewing scantily clad women, Fiske said.

Men also remember these women's bodies better than those of fully-clothed women, Fiske said. Each image was shown for only a fraction of a second.

This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women's responses to similar images.

A supplementary study on both male and female undergraduates found that men tend to associate bikini-clad women with first-person action verbs such as I "push," "handle" and "grab" instead of the third-person forms such as she "pushes," "handles" and "grabs." They associated fully clothed women, on the other hand, with the third-person forms, indicating these women were perceived as in control of their own actions. "The females who took the test did not show this effect," Fiske said.

"That goes along with the idea that the man looking at a woman in a bikini sees her as the object of action," Fiske said.

The findings are consistent with previous work in the field, and resonate, for example, with the abundance of female strip clubs in comparison to male strip clubs, said Dr. Charles Raison, psychiatrist and director of the Mind/Body Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Raison was not involved in the study.

Previous research found that people tend to similarly dehumanize those who are homeless or drug addicts, although the phenomenon in this case is somewhat different, Fiske said. People have reactions of avoidance toward the homeless and drug addicts, and the opposite for scantily clad women.

The broader purpose of the research was to explore circumstances under which people treat one another as the means to an end, Fiske said.

Past studies have also shown that when men view images of highly sexualized women, and then interact with a woman in a separate setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds, she said. They are also more likely to remember the woman's physical appearance, and sit closer to her -- for instance, at a job interview.

"Taken together, the research suggests that viewing certain images is not appropriate in the workplace," Fiske said.

"I'm not advocating censorship, but I do think people need to know what settings should discourage the display and possession of these kinds of things," she said.

"Both women and men have something to learn from this line of research," Raison said. "Women should be aware of how they are perceived when wearing provocative clothing, and men shouldn't let feelings of impersonal sexual longing interfere with their more personal relationships with other women, including female friends. "Many men make foolish choices because of sexual attraction," he said.

"The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.

Women may also depersonalize men in certain situations, but published research on the subject has not been done, experts say. Evolutionary psychology would theorize that men view women as objects in terms of their youth and apparent fertility, while women might view men as instrumental in terms of their status and resources, Fiske said. Another avenue to explore would be showing images of men's wives and girlfriends in bikinis, Raison said. He predicts the objectifying effect would not happen in this context.

How important is internet access to you?

You might have read the reports online recently that a high percentage of women prefer surfing the net to sex, and you may not agree with the findings. but other results from the same Intel-commissioned study is probably easier to, um, swallow.

Last week, Intel Canada released findings from a recent U.S.-based Harris Interactive survey on the theme "Internet reliance in today's economy."

Interestingly, 71 percent of those surveyed said it is either "important" or "very important" to have access to Internet-enabled devices -- such as laptops, notebooks and other mobile tools -- for real-time updates on important news, such as the state of the economy.

Roughly 65 percent of adults said they felt they "couldn't live" without Internet access.

So, what about you?

Me personally, I would sooner give up my TV, radio, magazines, books and newspapers than the Internet. It is, without question, my news medium of choice and ranks pretty high when it comes to entertainment (just trailing behind video games). What about you, do you think you could you go a year without Internet access?