Gracia Gilreath, Chapter 5, Question 6

I thought it was very interesting when Wheelan discusses why a male may get a job over a female, towards the beginning of the chapter. The business firms tend to think more about what is best for their future because they believe that a female may have a pregnancy in the near future and that may cause them problems because not only could the woman take a payed maternity leave, where work is not being done, but also she could possibly quit the firm, causing the business to have to rehire anyways. They hire the male because it is less likely that he will leave the firm. I found this interesting because before I read this example, I always thought that firms did this because of sexist intentions in that men are better than women. However, these initial assumptions can backfire when a female, who is not thinking about having a child anytime soon, is turned down and a male is hired who plans to stay at home when his wife has a child. Lack of information is typically not beneficial, in fact, "what we don't know can hurt us."