While there is plenty of girl-power campaigns spreading across mainstream media in everything from shampoo to car commercials, it’s tough to tell how much substance any of these movements really have. Every once in a while, that trend is bucked—take, for example when the WSL promised equal pay for men and women. Now, Burton is stepping up to the plate—making a pledge to support their female professional athletes who are going through pregnancy.
It all starts with female athletes like Izzy Lynch & Kimmy Fasani, who set the standard and made it clear that continuing a professional career while being a mother is more than possible—and it’s good to see brands like Burton following along. Check out the full press release below and see what the big move is all about. Thanks for leading the way, Burton!—ML
From Burton
Alysia Montaño’s recent piece in the New York Times, titled ‘Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby’, is the unfortunate status quo for women who become professional athletes, with sponsors often forcing hard decisions for mothers. Do what’s best for your career, or do what’s best for you or your family?
We believe no one should be forced to choose between a career and a family. We support women who spend their lives pushing boundaries and we gladly stand by them.
Starting with Burton Team athlete Kimmy Fasani, who paved the way over a year ago by deciding to continue her professional snowboarding career while becoming a mom to her son, Koa, we’ve been exploring ways we can double down on our commitment to our athletes who may want to make the same choice one day.
To make sure our sponsored athletes never have to go through what runner Alysia and others endured, we’re changing all female athlete contracts worldwide effective immediately to include language that supports and protects women during and after pregnancy. This means:
- Pregnancy will not be considered a medical condition.
- Burton will not reduce or suspend compensation for pregnancy/maternity reasons for twenty-four weeks (= six months).
- Burton will work with its pregnant athlete(s) to identify reasonable accommodations to athlete’s contractual obligations.
- Burton will not terminate a contract for pregnancy/maternity reasons.
- Burton will reimburse for a companion air ticket for any appearance required of Athlete during the time she is breastfeeding her child.
As Sarah Crockett, our Chief Marketing Officer, said in our announcement to our athletes:
“We respect you as whole people, and value your contributions to the sport of snowboarding, but also so much more than that. This is a partnership that has many dimensions, and ensuring that this doesn’t lapse in times where you are growing your family is incredibly important to us, and we know it’s important to you as well.”
We’re grateful to Kimmy and all the other female athletes out there who are brave enough to continue to break boundaries, both in and outside their sports.
