New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bemoaned major U.S. employers give women who give birth inadequate time away from work and compared some U.S. paid leave programs to the time female dogs are recommended to stay with their puppies.
“Do we know how long puppies are allowed to stay with their mothers after a dog has given birth?” Ocasio-Cortez asked during a congressional hearing on paid family leave programs. “Eight weeks. So, the market has decided that women and people who give birth deserve less time with their children than a dog.”
Experts testifying before the committee said the average length of a paid family leave program is six to eight weeks.
The freshman Democrat was grilling Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation with years of research on paid family leave programs.
“As a woman who has given birth to six children,” Greszler told the Washington Examiner, “I find being compared to a breeding dog with puppies incredibly offensive.”
Democrats, such as Ocasio-Cortez, have made reforming paid family leave programs a highlight of their policy proposals in recent years. Several 2020 Democratic candidates for president have proposed sweeping changes to federal paid leave programs for new mothers.
Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist, says American companies cannot be trusted to provide employees with the proper amount of maternity benefits.
“That at its core has shown that the market has failed to treat people with dignity and with basic respect,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So, when that happens, I think it’s our job as the public to redefine the rules of society and to treat people who give birth with the dignity that they deserve.”
Currently, there is no across-the-board paid family leave program, though several states have passed programs requiring companies to provide minimums.
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