Pregnant at MLA

How'd I miss this Chronicle thread? Wow. Just read the whole thing. A woman going on the market this fall is going to be about six months pregnant at MLA and wonders if she should try to hide it with what I'm guessing would be baggy clothes, so that people would think it was just extra weight. Depending on the capaciousness of a woman's pelvis and her pre-pregnancy weight, keeping it a secret might work, but how messed up is it that we're in a situation in which pregnant women are so tempted to try to pass? Responses are mixed, some evidencing stunning misogyny:

I wouldn't hire someone visibly pregnant. Call it prejudiced, but they're just not going to be single-mindedly devoted to the position.

[. . .]

If you hire a women [sic] about to have a kid you can count on

1. erratic attendance at faculty meetings
2. sporadic participation in committee meetings
3. missed teaching assignments
4. (where relevant) no research activity

What you wind up with is an undependable faculty member that expect [sic] special treatment at the expense of her colleagues. Everyone else has to pick up the slack for the "new mom". What galls me is this new mom has the unmitigated gall to expect a different standard for tenure!

A few years ago our (female) department head instituted a standing policy that no woman with a child under the age of two would be hired. period.

We have never regretted that policy...

[To be sure, some posters on the thread thought this guy wasn't for real. I hope they're right.]

Several sympathizers to the original poster's predicament are expressing the "it's their loss, not yours" and "you wouldn't have wanted that job anyway" arguments. Other posters point out that given the way job searches go, it's next to impossible to prove that pregnancy and/or parenthood was the cause of a woman's not getting hired. The consensus favors (not just in the original poster's case, but for any women who are pregnant or who have children) keeping that information concealed if possible. Is this all we can hope for -- hide it, their loss, not yours? Some of the responses on the thread are heartening, but for the most part, what a downer.