Alysia Montaño Wants Better Maternity Protection For Athletes

Olympic runner Alysia Montaño wants to make sure female athletes never have to deal with the complicated barriers that come with choosing motherhood and their careers in the sports industry.

In an interview with The Cut published Feb. 10, the track and field star opened up about her new non-profit, For All Mothers (formerly known as &Mother), a campaign aimed at dismantling the potential “career-shattering consequences” that professional athletes face when they choose motherhood. Motherhood can come at a cost for many female athletes, as the challenges they face may result in losing out on paychecks, lucrative sponsorships, or having their health insurance terminated altogether.  

“We’re seeing an incredible surge in women’s sports, and we deserve to be celebrated. But when women walk into motherhood, they often face the motherhood penalty,” Montaño told The Cut, which refers to the concept that mothers tend to earn lower wages compared to both women without children and men once they become pregnant. This unfair “tax” on working mothers is largely driven by workplace biases and societal perceptions that mothers are less committed or capable in their careers. As a result, they often miss out on promotions and face fewer opportunities for advancement.

“In sports, when your body is your business, the penalization is that much greater. Motherhood is a value add, and we need to see it that way,” Montaño continued. “We started the organization to create a landscape where women in sports can continue their careers, and we have a lot of work to do.”

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Montaño has experienced the “motherhood penalty” throughout her career.

The 38-year-old runner experienced the challenges of the motherhood penalty firsthand in 2014 when eight months pregnant with her first child, Linnéa, she won the 800-meter race at the USA Nationals. After defying expectations with her remarkable achievement, Montaño shared in a 2019 op-ed for the New York Times that she had to battle with her sponsor behind closed doors to ensure she kept her paycheck, all while being labeled as “the pregnant runner.” 

“When I was 10 weeks pregnant, I walked into a conversation with my manager at the time and a woman who worked in PR. I thought it was a powerful moment with those two women, so I held my breath and told them I was pregnant. My manager told me to focus on myself and my baby. But because the words pregnancy, maternity, and postpartum were not in my contract, after this woman left when I was about seven weeks postpartum, two men took her place and decided I would be financially penalized. They did not pay me for that first quarter the year after having my daughter,” she revealed.