Protections for Working Mothers Is the Next Fight in Women’s Sports
Fair pay may come first, but up next is the fight for equal labor protections during pregnancy and motherhood.
When Alysia Montaño became pregnant with her first child in 2014, she was overjoyed. A world champion and Olympic middle-distance runner, Montaño had strategically planned for her maternity to begin during an off-year from championship races. At USA Track & Field’s USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Montaño ran the 800-meter race while eight months pregnant and drew attention worldwide, both for her career and for her sponsor. “Asics was glorifying the pregnancy and the movement and my comeback,” Montaño recalls now. “I remember thinking that [after my postpartum recovery], I was excited to get back to work for them.”
Two months after she gave birth to her daughter, Linnea, Montaño received a phone call from Asics. Two men at the company were calling to talk to her about the prior year. They would have to dock her pay, they said, as she hadn’t met their performance standards, despite the fact that she had spent most of the year carrying a child. “There was no wording in the contract that protected me in my pregnancy, maternity, or postpartum period,” she explains. In fact, the clause in her contract described her pregnancy as an injury.