There’s widespread evidence that bias against mothers is a systemic problem beyond a few bad bosses. Research regularly shows that mothers are routinely viewed as less competent and committed to their jobs, despite evidence to the contrary. A study published in the American Journal of Sociology has found that in instances when job candidates were equal in every way except for a subtle indication that the candidate was a parent, being a mother reduced the chance that a candidate would be offered the job by 37 percentage points. The recommended salary for mothers who were offered the job was $11,000 less on average than for childless female candidates. (Researchers have found that this hiring and pay bias doesn’t affect fathers at all. In fact, fathers tend to make more money than their childless male counterparts.)

The consequences of this kind of discrimination are enormous. In The Upshot, Claire Cain Miller highlighted a range of research showing that the earnings of women who have children during the prime childbearing years of 25 to 35 never recover relative to their husbands’. Childless women’s earnings generally stay close to that of men, and having a child leads to a big dip in short-term earnings and long-term salary trajectory. A lack of professional advancement for mothers as a result of bias, termed the “maternal wall,” often has a big impact on who makes it to top leadership positions. That in turn determines who’s setting policies that affect younger mothers who are coming up in the work force.

So why aren’t more mothers speaking up more in public, #MeToo style, with messy rawness about the injustices they’ve experienced in the workplace? I have a few theories. Working mothers, because they have families to support, have more to lose and may be less willing to jeopardize their current jobs or professional status by speaking out. Mothers are still regularly judged negatively by our employers and society for charging ahead professionally after we have children. It doesn’t take much to internalize that sexism to convince ourselves that our kids are better off with a mother who doesn’t have a demanding job, which can lead us to being more resigned than fiery about being passed over for a promotion or not called back for a job interview. Or maybe working mothers are just plain tired.

But it’s also noteworthy to me that we’ve never had a high-profile case or national discussion about discrimination against mothers, one that begins to raise in the collective consciousness the notion that this kind of discrimination is wrong and truly harmful. Were there ever to be an Anita Hill-style hearing, complete with egregious details, I believe it would be a game changer.

If we haven’t heard much from mothers yet, I’m hopeful we’ll hear more soon. We are living in unprecedented times for women raising their voices, loudly. Mothers with young children are running for office in higher numbers than ever, challenging the conventional wisdom that voters aren’t comfortable with electing women with young kids at home. Some are even breast-feeding their babies in their campaign ads, which is an unmitigated triumph for normalizing nursing. If the dam of silence ever starts to break, I believe we’ll soon begin to hear a lot of mothers saying #MomsToo.