An individual's professional or personal goals also don't eliminate the possibility that they might walk into the street and get hit by a car on their first day; but that doesn't mean the potential factors into the hiring decision.
That's an extreme example, but it's to prove a point, which is that perception and context matter as much as potential in this scenario. Adjusting the lens through which employers view women has an effect on how much value they place on potential pregnancy.
Pregnancy is far, far more likely than getting hit by a car the first day.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/07/childlessness/
Only 15% of US women by age 44 are childless. With that statistic, eliminate the word potentially and say
overwhelmingly likely.
Boiling this down, my argument is that the issue of reproduction and family is used to justify discrimination toward women while the reasons behind this are exaggerated. Women have the capacity to choose when to start a family, just like men do; and just because they happen to be the bearers of children doesn't make them inherently less productive than men. The conflation of women and reproduction makes an absolute out of a contingency; but the truth is that women are able to plan around pregnancy and generally aren't looking to take advantage of their employer by getting pregnant while employed. Women want to work, and they realize the danger that comes with getting pregnant. They simply don't want their capacity to have children interfere with their merits as an employee.
Honestly, making their employment into an issue of potential pregnancy hinges on an assumption that all women will have babies, at some point or another--like it's an automatic function. And maybe some women will; but that possibility in the future does not compromise their current employment, legitimize discrimination against hiring them, and it doesn't mean that women are looking to be treated like princesses.
A lot of different claims in here, all of which are unsubstantiated (not saying they all couldn't be substantiated, but you haven't substantiated them). My link above delegitimizes related claims about "contextualism" etc. 85% may not be an absolute, but policy is based on a horseshoes and hand grenades approach, not splitting hairs. Of course women can plan around pregnancy,
the fucking employers can't. The best way to plan around a problem is to avoid the
overwhelming likelihood of it. But amazingly enough, women are hired with greater frequency than men in many industries, so it's not necessarily affecting hiring. What it does affect, in some cases or areas, are promotions/positions, and pay. Which it should. Equal pay for equal work. Promotion should be based on ability, and the greatest ability is availability.
You have a laugher in the assertion about "women not looking to take advantage of their employer", when you already noted women are looking for jobs that will give them the most benefits for not being at work. I do agree with the latter claim; they most certainly do. The military is probably the most generous employer for female employees. If the military collected and/or released statistics on female servicemember pregnancy, particularly when deployments and/or other extreme duty assignments arise, you'd be forced to back off this or experience extreme cognitive dissonance. Anecdotally, I can tell you it's quite a thing. Moreso among the enlisted than officer types, but still quite a thing.
