Hi, I am absolutely buried under work. Buried, I say! See that pile of papers that's moving, over there in the corner? I'm under it. Plus working nights! Carting kids to soccer! Not eating dinner as a family! Which sucks! Sometime soon I hope to transform all this chaos into a smoothly running organism. (Stop laughing.)

So! Cooper Munroe emailed me the other day to alert me to maternal profiling that's happening across the country. I was going to write a post about it, but now I'm going to cheat and just reprint her email here (see: work, buried).

Hi Sheryl,   Help! You have so many readers, I wanted to share this with you...Thank you!   At BlogHer I saw the documentary film, The Motherhood Manifesto, and through the film I learned that in Pennsylvania, where I live, it is legal to ask someone in a job interview if they are married or have children. Yep, dark ages. As you can guess, this hurts mostly moms and single moms. PA is one of 28 states that is in this predicament, and we, and the other states, aren't covered by the federal regs either.   Here is a list of states where discrimination is covered, and not covered, in employment laws.      Since BlogHer, I have been working with Joan Blades and others at MomsRising.org, as well as women in Pennsylvania to help get legislation passed (it has been stalled in the state house and senate -- for 6 years!) that would make this practice illegal.   I wrote an article about it that ran yesterday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, please read it if you get a chance, it explains the problem:   Anyway, if Pennsylvania can do this, it means so much to moms everywhere, and could create momentum for many critical issues involving moms and families, and on this type of discrimination. PA could start a chain reaction, and we need to drum up some noise. Momrising has create a web page for this, and we have been blogging over there too. [Here are links] to PA legislators phone/email info and a petition. You don't have to be from PA to send a message that this is important.   Anything you can do to get the word out would be awesome. So many times I talk about this people say, "I had no idea!" and that seems to be the biggest problem, the lawmakers think since no one is talking, nobody cares. We can change that pretty darn quick I would imagine.   Thank you! Cooper Munroe

So you know what to do. Click on those links, and let the legislature of PA know what you think. And if you're in one of the other 28 states who are profiling, drop your own senator an email as well.

Comments

[That Girl]

Sheryl, you look really thin in those pants and your hair has never been more beautiful!

[juliloquy]

Wow, Sheryl (and Cooper)--thanks, I live in PA and had no idea this discrimination was legal. I just called our PA Senate and House committee chairs. The Senate aide who answered the phone didn't even know what that bill was! So I will try to help get the word out.

[el-e-e]

Great article by Cooper!

[DM]

I signed the petition and forwarded it to my mother who will let every one in the world know about it.

I had no idea this was even possible. I may not have children myself but I can't idly sit by and have there be a possibility that my sister could get discriminated against.

[Kristin]

Cooper emailed me too, and I was appalled. I had no idea that this Mom Profiling crap has been legal anywhere in the last 20 years. Oy vey.