‘Bizarre’ News: Facebook & Apple Offers To Freeze Eggs For Female Employees

By Jane Okoth

The 21st century world is advancing at a speedy rate thanks to everyday inventions in technology.

As a woman, having a career is equally important as long as you are able to balance it with family commitments.

What if as a woman you were to choose between a career and your desire to have children courtesy of your employer?

Note that we are not talking about a struggling company; this involves a giant firm like Apple and Facebook.

According to an article on the NBC news, Apple and Facebook are giving female employees a one of a kind benefit.

They are offering to pay female employees so that they can agree to freeze their eggs in order to perform better at work.

Facebook recently began covering egg freezing, and Apple will start in January, according to their spokespeople as the firms appear to be the first major employers to offer this coverage for non-medical reasons.

“Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,” said Brigitte Adams, an egg-freezing advocate.

“By offering this benefit, companies are investing in women, and supporting them in carving out the lives they want.”

What if some Kenyan employers adopted this strategy, what would you think about it?

“It is the worst kind of treatment for a woman says Leah Ayugi, an employee at a leading parastatal.

“These companies no matter how big they are do not understand what women really want. Once you accept this procedure you will never have any children and what gain is that?”she asks.

Her conclusion is that “These are just selfish companies that do not want to invest in their female workers.

I guess they would not have to be asking for any maternity leave so it will help them in cost cutting as far as outsourcing is concerned.”

But Alex Njenga is not quick to judge on these decisions.

When you are working for Facebook it’s not like you are working for a middle size firm in our country,” he says.

“Those are big firms that have earned reputations around the world so perfoming better is not an option. Besides, if the idea was introduced in Kenya I would not dispute it. We can all agree that a vast majority of Kenyan women care about their careers more than anything else.” he concludes.

“A very unethical, selfish and inconsiderate move by the companies, says Justus Omwega a primary school teacher.

“So by doing this they are hoping to be more productive? I can tell you money and greed is the motive here.”

What are your thoughts on the issue?

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