Nike lost U.S. sprinter Allyson Felix as a spokeswoman because it had no interest in accommodating her pregnancy. That’s too bad on many fronts.
It’s too bad in general because accommodating family is something more businesses should do. Family is the most important worldly undertaking most humans do, and employers, sponsors, and colleagues ought to make an effort to facilitate family formation and family rearing.
It’s too bad for Nike because Felix, inspired by her daughter, returned to the Olympics this year and won gold, becoming the most decorated track and field athlete of all time.
It’s also too bad because Nike really tries to pose as an icon of female empowerment, and it’s just a lie.
They even asked Felix this year to appear in a woman-power ad of sorts. Yet Nike, according to multiple reports, typically treats women athletes this way: It’s all for them — until they do the uniquely womanly thing of getting pregnant. “Getting pregnant is the kiss of death for a female athlete,” explained Phoebe Wright, a former Nike-sponsored runner. “There’s no way I’d tell Nike if I were pregnant.”
Nike also reportedly pressured pregnant mothers and brand-new mothers into running when it wasn’t best for the baby or the mother.
This is all to say that Nike has a very specific image of a woman it wants to celebrate and form, and that image doesn’t involve fertility, pregnancy, or motherhood.
Consider the Oregon Project, Nike’s special camp to try to foster American long-distance runners. Some women there were treated with birth control as part of an effort to squeeze every drop out of their performance.
In this light, should we be so surprised that Nike is fine with the Communist Chinese government, given its history of forced abortions and sterilizations? Nike’s view on women is consistent. You could even call it a seamless garment.
