Maternal wall biases and the maybe baby effect

Abstract

Gabriel and colleagues ’ (2022) focal article addresses how academia ’ s culture surrounding tenure, career success, and promotions can cause women scholars to question if they can simultaneously have both a successful career and a family. Balancing both a fulfilling career and family life has been an ongoing issue for women in all industries. Not only can this balancing act itself hinder career opportunities for women, but as the authors point out, a lack of support, toxic attitudes, and biased perceptions regarding pregnant women and mothers in the workforce can create additional career obstacles. Interestingly, recent research suggests that pregnancy-related biases may extend beyond even currently pregnant women or mothers, and may also apply to women who might simply be perceived as soon becoming pregnant (e.g., Gloor et al., 2018; Gloor et al., 2021). This has been coined the “ maybe baby effect. ” The maybe baby effect proposes that the assumed like-lihood of a young woman soon becoming pregnant increases employers ’ perceptions of accom-panied inconvenience (i.e., maternity leave) while decreasing perceptions of the woman ’ s job commitment (Gloor et al., 2018). The maybe baby effect can be traced back to the “ maternal wall ” phenomenon, which embodies the different forms of discrimination and biases working mothers or pregnant employees experience in the workplace or while trying to enter the workforce (Williams, 2004). The maternal wall differs from the glass ceiling 1 because it specifically pertains to biases that occur because of a woman ’ s parental or pregnancy status, and not because of other gender-based biases. The article by Gabriel and colleagues speaks to general maternal wall issues within academia. In this commentary, we expand upon Gabriel et al. (2022) maternal wall concerns by discussing the maybe baby effect and how it might adversely impact women within the academic work setting.