A leading Australian workplace relations expert has labelled a policy of paying female staff to freeze their eggs and delay childbirth as a "loaded option" that commodifies women's lives.
Professor Marian Baird, who heads up the Women and Work Research Group at the University of Sydney's Business School, said she was "astonished" when she first heard news of the policies in place at tech giants Apple and Facebook, and questioned the business case behind them.
"Here are companies basically buying the ability of their talented female employees and giving them some sort of capitalist incentive to delay having children – which may not even work," she said.
Apple announced it would pay up to $US20,000 ($22,953) to cover the costs of freezing and storing eggs of full-time and part-time female staff, from January 1, 2015.
Facebook also confirmed it had introduced a similar policy on January 1 this year, accessible by US employees covered by the company's insurance plan. The benefit covers all costs of egg freezing for medical and non-medical reasons, also up to $US20,000.
So, let's get this straight: two elite-level employers introduce a policy that is intended to encourage women to enter and remain in the workforce, and get $20,000 worth of benefits that male employees do not get, but this 'commodifies' them?
If being commodified means I can get free resources, can I too be commodified please?
Dr Tony Bartone, president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, told Fairfax Media "no employer should determine when a women can have a baby, or any other pregnancy and/or contraception decisions".
Far from dictating when women should fall pregnant, Apple says the policy empowers female staff members. Facebook declined to comment.
Apple, for once in its life, is right.
However Professor Baird said the policies sent a subliminal message to women that freezing their eggs and having children later may be the best option for their careers.
"This is a real dilemma for women as they often reach their peak career times at the best time to have a baby," Professor Baird said.
"We already see that women who have babies are not seen to be committed. It's a very loaded option."
Professor Baird said the decision by US companies to take advantage of the "social freezing" trend was evidence of "the cycle of employment" further encroaching into "the cycle of life".
Is it shocking that companies want their employees to remain full time workers, especially in companies that employ high level workers, and give them incentives to do so? How shocking. I'm shocked.
(Of course, Apple's policy doesn't apply outside the U.S., so the Chinese workers assembling their products won't see any benefit whatever).
"No company introduces a policy without a business case," she said, but questioned whether such a case was sound from both a corporate and personal perspective.
Such policies were "commodifying the whole fertility process", she said.
Why is women being given more options about their fertility a bad thing?
A case of you can't please everybody, or a case of some people are never satisfied?