Female absenteeism is not just about child care

Flett acknowledges that women carry most of the responsibilities at home, whether caring for ill children or aging parents. But he believes women can be their own worst enemies in the workplace because they feel the need to give managers too much information. “Women will often make excuses for why they’re not coming to work, which opens them up to the alpha males that keep them out of the corner office.”
But, he maintains, just being a woman, mom or not, can work against you: “It’s a stereotype inoculated in our bone marrow. You are less reliable because you’re a girl and not driven by testosterone.”

It is a very sad misconception, I worked for the same company for 20 years, and in all of that time, I was out maybe a total of ten(?) days, at one time, we were paid back the sick time that we did not use at the end of the year, I always received a check. When I finally left, I was owed 3 1/2 weeks vacation, and forfeited more than 40 hours of sick pay, this was already into the 9th month of the year. Many of my male counterparts would not even dream of losing the time they felt they were owed or due, they even said I was WAY too loyal!

I for a short time ( short because I couldn't stomach what was going on) as a human resource manager for a department store that shall remain nameless. I was actually scolded for hiring a pregnant women, because the upper managers felt they took too much time off and couldn't work the schedule that they wanted.
I can't tell you how many times I had to point out that kind of discrimination was illegal.
Or the Emergency family leave act. I myself was passed over for a promotion to salaried management twice because of maternity leave.