Sorry, that's an awful sentence. It could be taken as 'yeah well, if you're a foreign female you gotta put up with it but us Swiss, how dare they?!"

I was not impressed by the OP's post but the longer the thread the more I get aware of the problem ....

I read this as: it happens to almost all women, whatever nationality, wherever they came from.

Today my partner went for a job interview but the boss said it probably wouldn't work out as he wouldn't feel comfortable asking her to stay longer than her shift knowing that she has a baby at home.

Sexist or considerate?

Realistic.

You beat me to it

I got asked once in the UK if we eat with silverware. I was so tempted to say we each have just one woodden stick - for eating, writing, self defence, magic tricks, as a toy, to stir the boiling laundry on the stove, use it as a bbq thing to roast wurst...

I do look quite civilized on most days, not sure what prompted that question.

It is funny when some cultures consider themselves better or more sophisticated than others. Especially when they talk with the "knowing look". The culinary and home making skills that chicks have back home are for sure a result of generations of gender inequality, too. Buh.

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Good answer

But playing devil's advocate, isn't a bit sexist too assume that the responsibility is primarily hers?
If I went for that same job interview would they say the same thing to me? And if not then wouldn't that be sexist?

Indeed, my asian stepdaughter and nieces never have souch troubles, as they are Swiss.

Tom

Okay, politically correct would have been: "Who will look after your baby if I need to ask you to stay longer than your shift?
To each of you

Yes, I agree. Not the most sophisticated. And annoying when one is categorised and labelled, yes.

Surely we all experience those kinds of remarks, in varying contexts?

These are real examples from people I know:

• The man from Nigeria who had to listen to: "Oh, yes, we once considered going to Colombia, but were scared because of the drug mafia."
• The woman truck driver who told me that she finally cut her hair short and started to wear lumberjack type shirts because it made her journeys safer if other motorists no longer turned their heads to stare at her behind the wheel.
• Many of us in Switzerland who, as Marischi posted above, are taken to be from Swaziland or Sweden, where our preferred food is meatballs.
• The war refugee from Eritrea who was asked, in her assessment interview upon arriving in Switzerland, whether she climbed trees to find a safe place to sleep at night.
• The male nurse who is asked: "Oh, so you're gay, then?"

By no means am I in favour of discrimination, definitely not! We're all just people, and deserve to be treated with respect. Yet I think that part of the foolishness of such remarks comes from exactly what YellowBirdie said... an awkward blurting out of the first association that comes to mind. Just very sad when that first association categorises bluntly, and remains the only one.

I think that reasoning on boss's part is faulty, before you even get to any gender in this. Just because one is a parent does not mean that the kid will get sick, or that particular parent does not have a back up. Just shows the boss is not the sharpest person. Parents are not lesser experts in their fields or less organized - usually more. But try to tell that to a doofus who is not looking for a loyal and organized specialist, really.

(My preferred food are meatballs)

My wife has no qualms about saying such things, and hers are better than most.

Tom

Or, better:
"I'm aware that you have a baby, and I understand that emergencies can happen. In general, though, can I rest assured that you have organised child-care, such that I could count on you were I to need to ask you to stay longer than your shift?"

I think it depends on what the job is. If the job involves staying late without prior warning (quite common in technical support), then it's a valid concern. He might have phrased it a bit better, but if he knows he needs to ask his staff to stay late without warning, then he is not being a doofus for putting the concern on the table.

Just for info, it was a coffee shop. Didn't really look all that flash either.

A doofus will assume parents do not have a back up and assume none of the adults around the baby won't be able to take care of it (Red Cross, sitter, another parent, grandparents, neighbor...).

To not give a job because of this personal discomfort on the hiring side is far from caring, to answer kris-kros.

Btw - overtime is extremely regulated here.

Not all jobs are 9 to 5. I ran tech support departments where it was fairly common to ask people to stay late, or go on an unexpected customer call. As people on the team had family the pool of people to call on reduced. This made my job more challenging, and it also (in some cases) caused tensions within the team.

But now that Kriss mentions that it is a coffee shop... I agree: Doofus.

Only foreigners eat meatballs.

Tom

I remember "Brätkügeli". Wouldn't know the English translation for that - who wants to know, disgusting stuff.

I think that it is perfectly valid for an interviewer to ask a parent if he or she has child-care organised. The personal details of how the parent does so are not the employer's business, but knowing whether or not this employee can stay late on short notice is wise planning. Put the other way round, neglecting to warn an employee that such overtime might be required would be unfair, and the more so when the boss knows that the employee has a child/children at home.

Yes, it would be discriminatory to make the leap: "if parent, then unreliable ". In the case of kriss kross' partner, the boss assumed that parenting would get in the way of work. That's the pity! In another team, a parent needing to leave on time might just be taken as a fact, where the boss tells everyone: "Remember, folks, try not to give Mary (or Mark) extra tasks at the end of her (or his) shift. I like her (or his) work, and want us all to remember that she (or he) needs to leave punctually."

@MusicChick, that's interesting: I haven't found overtime to be extremely regulated in Switzerland. It seems to me that any employment contract can simply include an "I agree to overtime"-clause.