Female business leader backtracks on controversial pregnancy comments

After a week under fire for her comments advising companies not to employ women aged between 25 and 45, in case they start a family during that time, Mónica Oriol, the first female president of one of Spain’s top business associations, the Círculo de Empresarios, has given a radio interview in which she says her words were taken out of context.

Talking to the Cadena Ser network on Friday, Oriol said: “For a woman to have the same career as a man, she needs to sort out her family life first.”

A week earlier, the mother of six told a meeting of Spanish and Latin American business leaders: “I prefer to hire women older than 45 or younger than 25 because when women become pregnant, we end up with a problem… If a woman falls pregnant and you can't get rid of her for the 11 years after she's had her child, who is a company employing?”

She went on to say: "We are creating so many rules in this country and in Europe in favor of women that what we are doing is isolating them from a professional career.”

But Oriol stated on Friday that she felt like “a victim of myself… Not only do I not believe what I said, but I do the opposite; as a working woman myself, it’s my duty to criticize this situation.” She added: “I really regret having said that, and the way that it has been interpreted. I want to say sorry for the way I expressed myself.”

Oriol told Cadena Ser that her intention was to call attention to the problems women face in their careers. “Men are given more opportunities than women. My choice of words was unfortunate, but not what I said. I reaffirm my position in this matter.”

Last week she said: "The sacrifice you make to become an executive has its price: either you get married to a civil servant or you have a husband that loves children."

Speaking on Friday, Oriol said that one of the biggest problems that career women face is a lack of nurseries, and that working hours were “completely out of sync with school hours.” She added that many working women rely on the family, particularly their parents, to look after children until their parents arrived home, often for several hours.