Slashdot Mirror
So What If Yahoo's New Dads Get Less Leave Than Moms?
Dawn Kawamoto writes "Yahoo rolled out an expanded maternity/paternity policy that doubled the family leave for moms to 16 weeks. But new dads at Yahoo get only 8 weeks. It turns out that Yahoo is not the only Fortune 500 company to short-shrift news dads. But, really, do new dads think it's worth crying over? Hmmm...changing diapers or cleaning up code — both are messy, but one smells less."
Anything less than equal treatment is discrimination.
Men are being discriminated against by not getting the same amount of leave to spend with their newborn children.
This has both physical and psychological effects on all parties involved.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Which one is that?
we get paid more.
The pay differential makes up for missing out on conveniences like this.
I got 2 days, as per the law here in the Netherlands. But I saved up for 6 weeks, definitely needed those 6 weeks...
They shouldn't be so sexist about it. They should offer 16 weeks to any human employee that gestates a fetus, and 8 weeks to the partner of the gestater. That way it's not sexist.
That would be the diapers that smell less, right?
This gives the shaft to homosexual couples where there is no mom to take 16 weeks leave with the child.
At least, that's how Corporate America seems intent on treating male parents.
Society, too - basically, if you have a penis, you are considered tertiary to the rearing of a child. Look at custody battles - The mother is given the benefit of the doubt almost without exception. Case in point, my ex-sister-in-law has documented psychosis, multiple suicide attempts on her record, and a known history of violent behavior, whereas my brothers record is sterling; yet she was given damn near full custody of my nephew anyway.
One has to wonder if the unbalanced treatment of fathers in our society has anything to do with the number of them who bail on their spouses/offspring...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Here, the mother gets 17 weeks, and there are an additional 35 weeks that can be split up however the parents decide. There are some requirements (you have to be eligible for Employment Insurance - worked a minimum number of hours, your income must be significantly reduced, etc.).
Sweden has 1 year paid parental leave, covered by the government, with a bonus if split close to even between parents.
Move here. It is nice. Well... except for the moose.
I was on the personnel committee at our church.
We grant 2 weeks parental leave to any employee who becomes the parent of a child (natural or adopted)
and 2 additional weeks to any employee who bears a child.
Women on the committee who had borne children did not think this was excessive.
Do they each get 16 weeks?
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
1) To wife: "If all goes well I'm taking a week off after the baby comes."
2) To work: "I'm taking all eight weeks off."
3) Enjoy seven weeks of 8-5 freedom.
Nothing motivates you better to go back to the grind of corporate work than 7 years of shitty diapers. I love my kids, but 7 years of diapers was enough. Much happier with a regular paycheck and a nanny.
We need a men's liberation (bowel) movement. I'm burning my jockstrap in anger!
This inequality just furthers the discrimination between the sexes in our society. By giving men less leave, they are saying that men are less inportant and/or less effective when it comes to childcare. What if the mom doesn't get any leave at all? What if mom wants a break after 8 weeks? Or what if the mom completely abandoned the kid to the father? I see no excuse for this.
This is just another way to inflate the stats that say being raised with no mom is a bad thing, but being raised with no dad is relatively fine.
It doesn't matter how you wrap it, or what you call it. Discrimination based upon gender is illegal. That's what Yahoo! is doing when they up the benefits to females and not to men equally.
Is it worth crying over? Yes. Reverse the flow of "who gets what" in the equation, and see if women would flip out and start getting all lawsuit-ish. (Protip: you're damn right they would, and for good reason.)
You want equality? Then it's time to fight for it....on both sides. Ladies, if you're silent on this matter, you're guilty.
I would never, ever, give up the time I've spent with my child for a job. Your children are only ever that age once. To miss that time with them would be far greater loss than anything else.
Nothing motivates you better to go back to the grind of corporate work than 7 years of shitty diapers. I love my kids, but 7 years of diapers was enough. Much happier with a regular paycheck and a nanny.
Maybe your problem was leaving your kids in diapers until they were 7?
I work at an illustrious "fortune 500" and guess how much paid paternity leave there is? One fucking day. Paid leave is a gift, whether its for the mom or the dad, so take it and don't you dare complain. That is all, AC out.
Let's try to figure this one out...
The new CEO - a woman who just gave birth (or is about to?) - and has publicly cracked-down on people putting time in at home comes up with a Maternity/Paternity policy....
Happy to live in Canada where both men and women can take 35 weeks of parental leave, covered by employment insurance.
Gross! You're supposed to change them at least once a day, aren't you?
love is just extroverted narcissism
When employers don't have to give parents who didn't give birth as much leave employers have an incentive to discriminate against parents they ARE forced to give a lot of leave to. A company might reason that if employee A might get pregnant and have to miss a lot of work and get paid time off, we should promote employee B instead!
After the past week of looking at some really stinky code around here, I would cherish diapers.
This injustice demands some sort of action for men's rights. I demand an Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution! /s
American federal law prohibits policies that discriminate based on sex. By giving different leave times according to the person's gender, Yahoo is in violation. They could be subject to EEOC fines or even sued in civil court by any aggrieved parties (meaning the dads).
Maybe your problem was leaving your kids in diapers until they were 7?
Unless he had multiples, they don't all arrive at the same time. Sometimes just as soon as one is out of diapers, another one pops out.
Men should also be able to breastfeed their babies!
When our daughter was born I took a month off to be home. Coffee and sleep deprivation was the order of the day, but I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Trolling is a art,
In all fairness, the fathers (typically) aren't the ones who *had* the baby and have to recover, physically, chemically, emotionally, mentally, or have to breastfeed. An AC above posted the following:
"They should offer 16 weeks to any human employee that gestates a fetus, and 8 weeks to the partner of the gestater. That way it's not sexist."
This is actually a pretty valid argument even though it was meant as a joke. Seriously. Female to male transgender fathers can have babies too. What would they do in this case? Any man that can have a baby can have 16 weeks off. Sounds logical to me.
A newborn needs to be with his mother - and nursing on mother's milk.
I agree 100% with you but in corporate America the next best thing is to have the mother have more time than the father since we are stuck with this treatment.
And if Americans weren't so infantile about breast feeding, the mother should be able to bring her baby to work and nurse them there.
I don't see what the big deal is about mothers nursing their babies. We Americans are so fucked up when it comes to things regarding reproduction, sexuality and other things regarding family.
But yet, we have NO problem letting our kids see someone's brains get blown out in the movies or in video games.
Ensuring that men have and *must take* as much leave when a child is born ends up improving equality *for women*, as now employers have no productivity basis for discriminating against women w.r.t. having kids.
If you send them to a boarding school too, you only have to see them a couple times a year.
Cheap storage VM.
Would that be the diapers that smell less? Diapers don't typically stink until the baby starts eating solid food. This happens at around the 4 to 6 month mark. So if dads got 16 weeks of paternity time, they would head back to work just when the diapers began to smell.
Yes, I'm a dad (two wonderful boys) and yes I changed my fair share of diapers when they were younger. (However, I'm glad that we're out of the diaper phase for good now!) Unfortunately, I didn't even get 8 weeks of paternity leave. I took a week off when my first son was born (out of my own vacation days) and then took a couple of days off when my second was born. I would have loved to have spent 8 weeks pampering my wife and helping her with our newborn.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Are you seriously trying to suggest that dads don't want to bond with their new babies? That dads would rather spend time at work than with their family?
Stop living in the past. Men want to spend time with their babies just as much as mothers do.
Ehm, some people get more than one children. Then the time can just add up.
Mentioning "changing diapers" still brings up flashbacks to what my wife and I call The Infamous Seven Diaper Diaper Change. *shudders* The horror! The horror!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I can't have children and i adopt. Am i afforded a few weeks to settle my family life and get time off?
How is this even fair?
Maybe if companies just gave enough time off for people to budget taking off for children without having to deal with m/paternity leave this wouldn't be an issue.
Male CEO, in response to life event which affects him personally, increases benefits for male employees only, policy discriminates against women; outrage ensues!
Genders are reversed in the above statement, outrage ensues?
...and I'm a guy, but even I'll say it: don't you think that the mothers have just a little more to deal with? I mean, they just pushed a 3-5kg or so sack of flesh out of an an orifice in their body, they're spending any number of hours day and night feeding the thing, they're bodies are readjusting from various hormonal changes...
Maybe, just maybe, giving moms more makes a bit of sense.
It's such a huge lifestyle change, your first child you should have 16 weeks.
I remember my wife and I being shocked that her leave was running out (she got far less than 16 weeks though) .
After that though, the 2nd child was really a piece of cake and she was ready to go back to work far sooner.
I'd say with no other difficult circumstances you should only get 8 weeks for any child above the first one.
Well, either that or they should offer you a bonus to come back early or something.
I do think men should get a benefit, but 8 weeks is a heel of alot for someone who can't do much early on.
If you get non traditional marriage and you have a covered spouse, does only the woman who physically had the child get the longer benefit? What happens if you adopt?
We all know that women will still complain about inequality in pay (read as in less pay) than men. But if you ask them, this 16 to 8 week difference for maternity is a sure thing and should never be questioned. At least I personally know women with this mind set. Selective equality anyone ?
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Some new moms can be recuperating from mild to serious complications which will affect their mobility. Painkillers can affect judgement to the point of dysfunction especially in cases where the mother is not breastfeeding and/or newborn did not survive. Seems to me Yahoo would rather you pick up the tab and hire 24/7 healthcare for mom in cases like that. It's the typical despicable bean counting done by corporations that really could care less whether you have a family or not.
Not only is the policy blatantly sexist (coming from a female CEO makes this even worse) but it actively discourages Dad's from participating in their kids lives. This perpetuates the myth that only women can be active parents and has no business in the 21st century. There is absolutely no reason that a father can't provide just as good of care and be just as involved with raising their child as the mother.
Sexist attitudes like this are why men get taken to the cleaners in family courts all over the world. This same woman probably bitches about men not helping with diaper changes and parenting duties. If you have a kid, never ever let someone do this to you, get involved and refuse to let sexist twats keep you from being part of your kids life. Take the opportunity and raise your kid right, teach them the things you wished you learned and have fun with the.
Fathers are supposed to be more involved in their kids lives than providing a paycheck. Take responsibility, stand up to sexism, raise your kids as they deserve better. If doing the right thing doesn't inspire you just remember that if you don't you'll be taken to the cleaners if you ever go to Family Court.
/Rant off
Dawn Kawamoto is the associate editor of Dice.
via http://news.dice.com/2012/09/05/bequeathing-unlimited-data-plan/
Keep on sellin' Slashdot out DICE
My wife gave birth to twins 2 years after my eldest was born. I got *no* company supported paternity leave, because only mothers got time to recover. HR spun this as medical recovery for females that men didn't need as we weren't the child bearers. Let me tell you, parents of multiples need BOTH parents off for the first couple months in order to handle things. Add in a toddler... I don't recall the first year my twins arrived. I have the odd snapshot of a big, usual bad, event but otherwise the entire year is blank except for a vague recollection of utter exhaustion.
yeah, most of the rest of USA gets you 2 weeks for being a new dad. She gives 8 weeks.be happy with that. after all, you guys are not the ones recovering from labor and c-sections.
You want fathers to participate equally in raising their children, give them equal leave to stay at home and bond with them when they're born. If you think fathers are just there to provide a paycheck, then I guess it doesn't matter.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Discrimination isn't necessarily a bad thing. We as a society do it all the time. The most obvious example is changing rooms. Do you want your 13 year old daughter changing into a swimsuit in the same room as a 45 year old man? Or how about when you sell a house. Do you want to be forced to sell your house for far less than its worth so you don't discriminate against those that can't afford it? Do you want a disabled toddler playing for the Raiders so that they don't discriminate against ability? This whole idea of making everyone equal for the sake of equality is silly. Us men just have to interact with the child. The mother has to interact, heal her own body, feed the child with a substance that comes from her body, etc... It is MUCH bigger deal for a woman to have a child than for a man to become a new Dad. And guess what, 8 weeks is AMAZING! I wish my employer would do that. If I worked for Yahoo, I'd be grateful for the policy, not bitter.
You may want to adjust your sarcasm detector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it is standard that mothers stay at home for 3 years after a child's birth, which may extend with additional children[citation needed]. Mothers can decide to take 2, 3 or 4 years of maternity leave. It is also possible for the fathers to take the leave instead of the mothers but it is not common. For the whole period mothers are supported by the state[citation needed]. In Slovakia the standard duration of parental leave is 3 years; for a child with a disability it is up to 6 years. The state pays support of 256 Euros per month for the child's first 2 years, reducing to 164.22 Euros per month thereafter. A similar model is also used in Austria where mothers can choose between 1 and 3 years.
Sweden provides working parents with an entitlement of 16 months paid leave per child at 80 percent pay, the cost being shared between employer and the state. To encourage greater paternal involvement in child-rearing, 2 months out of the 16 is reserved for the "minority" parent, in practice usually the father, and some Swedish political parties on the political left argue for legislation to oblige families to divide the 16 months equally between both parents. Norway has similarly generous leave. In Estonia mothers are entitled to 18 months of paid leave, starting up to 70 days before due date. Fathers are entitled to paid leave starting from the third month after birth (paid leave is however available to only one parent at a time).
Then quit your job, or ask your boss to let you have some unpaid time off. I am no Republican nor a capitalist but it is not the government's job to raise your child.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Personally, I'd prefer to stop giving maternity leave to either parent. Treat pregnancy like the medical leave that it is, and stop catering to the breeders. Some of us think we have enough mouths to feed on this planet as it is.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Yeah, companies shouldn't discriminate against women in hiring. A woman can perform just as well as a man. In fact, she must be even more efficient in her work than a man, for her average to stay as high even with her longer maternity leave. /sarcasm
I have a huge problem with society-enforced institutionalization of untruths. Don't demand that people smile, nod their heads, and repeat along with politically correct mantras that are obviously false. Tell it like it is. People can (learn to) handle it. Women of childbearing age are statistically at higher risk than others for being lower performers for a company in the long term, both during and after pregnancy. Maybe we should or shouldn't allow discrimination (I'm not commenting on that because I'm making a different point), but the numbers don't lie. Neither should we.
Full disclosure: I am a male who as a teenager and twenty-something was charged higher auto insurance rates than females my age, because (once again) the numbers don't lie.
You are missing the heart of the matter. The real issue is that preferential treatment towards men is considered wrong regardless of any considerations while preferential treatment towards women is okay as long as it has a justification. Charging men less than women for haircuts because, by and large, their haircuts take less time and attention is unlawful discrimination even though it has a perfectly reasonable justification. Your explanation does make sense and could be seen as a reasonable justification. However, if we allow discrimination in favor of women in some cases we should also allow it for men in some cases as well. Femnatzis battle to take away all discriminatory advantages held by men while retaining all discriminatory advantages held by women.
The policy reinforces society's "standard" gender role, assuming that a woman will be a primary caregiver and a man will be a primary bread winner. This is not always the case, and codifying it is wrong and unethical. Equal treatment, please.
I've worked at one regional bank and three Fortune 500 telecom companies. None of these businesses has offered anything beyond FMLA leave for mother's that give birth. There was absolutely nothing offered for males except you could put in a vacation request.
I guess that is one of the benefits of being in a right to work state?
When the man excretes an organism the size of a small bowling ball from his orifice, then we can talk about equal maternity rights.
When women are putting in the same hours and producing the same results as men, then we can talk about equal pay rights.
Until such time, each gender has it really good with the status quo.You can continue to reap the existing benefits or you can make enough noise that they are taken away. The choice is yours.
Flame on!
This just furthers the fact.
If I were a male working at Yahoo, I would have skipped out of work early today and spent the rest of the day trying to knock up my wife. Then hire a good discrimination lawyer and sue the shit out of Yahoo.
This needs to stop. This incessant "Father's are shit assholes" attitude from our government, employers and society.
No wonder why there are so many "dead-beat dads" -- all you assholes never gave them a chance.
Maybe your problem was leaving your kids in diapers until they were 7?
I agree that 7 years is too long, but the diaper box DOES say "up to 35 pounds"...
Whenever men are discriminated against, come of with reasons after the fact why this discrimination works in their favor.
Coincidentally, Mr. Mom has been playing on cable lately. Very interesting how much gender roles have changed in 30 years.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Of fucking course it's a problem.
Pretend that we lived in a world where women made less money for equal work, and you put this out:
"Making sandwiches or making money- both take time, but one tastes better!"
So yea, of course overt sexism is an issue.
...And we had twins.
>> Dawn Kawamoto: "But, really, do new dads think it's worth crying over? Hmmm...changing diapers or cleaning up code — both are messy, but one smells less."
How very condescending. You really think all dads dread the responsibilities of parenthood?
It's discrimination in the sense that a distinguishment is being made.
I expect to see distinguishment in Webster's by year's end. It is perfectly cromulent!
Captcha reads: Distinction - Holy crap it's getting creepy.
I believe that is referring to the maximum capacity of the diaper, not the age of the child. Or have I been wrong all these years?
As a fellow procrastinator, I can understand his stance.
Nothing motivates you better to go back to the grind of corporate work than 7 years of shitty diapers.
Maybe if more geeks did this Tour of Duty, one of them would be motivated enough to invent a diaper changing machine . . . ?
. . . maybe just modifying a 3D printer with Lego Mindstorms, or something like that . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Women of childbearing age are statistically at higher risk than others for being lower performers for a company in the long term, both during and after pregnancy
Please provide link(s) to said studies with said statistics.
And mods, please do NOT +1 Informative such posts without links. They certainly can generate interesting discussion, but not without something to substantiate their viewpoint.
Do the mothers still get the extra 8 weeks, even though there was no traumatic (and apparently debilitating) childbirth involved?
Or do adoptions just not count (no leave for you....)?
If an inside joke is told and nobody knows what it means, does it make anybody laugh?
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Seriously guys. Think about it. If you had to shoot a kid out from that region of your body, how long would it take YOU to recover?
She did all the work. You just had a bit of fun.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No one seems to have mentioned breastfeeding. Moms are more likely to breast feed, which is healthier for the baby, and sustain it for longer durations if they have extended leave.
There are good reasons why mothers should get additional leave.
However, I do have one concern: it reinforces the notion that women are the primary child minders. Of course, this is a sexist attitude towards men because it deprives them of a role that they may wish to fulfil. Yet it is also sexist towards women, since it perpetuates a role that many women want to grow beyond.
That's beside the point. Even if if you switch the sexes in that example the point remains the same.
To institutionally treat men and women the same, to not ever differentiate the rules for men and women is essentially ignoring inherent differences in the sexes.
My main gripe with modern feminism is its complete disregard for more than 100 years of scientific discoveries in biology. Modern feminism works on the premise that all people are born blank slates with no inherent behavior. Based on this premise, society is free to mold peoples behavior. Its simply a matter of controlling the environment and you can produce the behavior you want. This is exactly what feminism in its modern form seeks to do. To change the map and expect the territory to change with it.
Even a basic understanding of evolution should tell you that this is not possible. At our base we are biological machines programmed to reproduce, and because males and females reproduce with different parameters - males invest far less per copulation and are able to produce far more offspring than females - it follows that the sexes will behave differently. Since reproduction is our prime directive ( its all forms of life's prime directive ), all our feelings, desires, wants and needs are optimized towards getting us to reproduce as efficiently as possible. Since we reproduce differently, men and women will have different feelings, wants, needs, fears and desires. We will behave differently.
Our laws should acknowledge this truth. We should try to change the accepted model to a more accurate one, not play the feminists game of PC tug-of-war, arguing over equal maternity leave and haircut prices.
CA State Disability pays 6 weeks leave, or did when I had kids, for both Mother and Father. Seems to me the state should only pay disability to whomever is actually 'pregnant', since that is the medical portion of having a child. Companies that want to provide this benefit typically do so for bonding time and that should be given equally to both parents, that's not a medical issue its a family issue. Incidentally these benefits are usually provided by companies in the case of adoption as well, if this is the case with Yahoo would a lesbian couple that adopts a child get the longer leave for both but a pair of gay males get the lesser for each??? Murky waters, I haven't read their policy but this seems like a bad idea.
I think at most companies fathers would be lucky to get 1 week off.
wake me when the dads who complain about this can carry and deliver the child
What happened was the HR ladies 'clique' (the ones with all the balloons and thank you cards in their cubicles) said a woman needs all those days off because the baby really needs to be with the mother, though he should be there in the first few weeks to help her. That is how they rationalized it in a conference room full of women. The few men in the room it wasn't their thing to talk about and kept looking at their smartphones or resting their head on their hands, nodding quietly. Nobody cared that it was discriminatory in an age where both male and female raise kids and the rise of career moms.
Yahoo just set themselves up for lawsuits especially in California.
So even though his explanation is perfectly reasonable, which i take it means that you agree with him; that women should have longer leave, you don't want to give it to them because that would be giving in to the "feminazis"?
Dude, pick your battles. You will never beat them at the Discrimination Game.
You shouldn't be surprised about Yahoo. The Media got us to this point.
It seems that every other commercial on TV where you have a woman and a man in it -- the man is always the one who is wrong... From 'ring around the collar' didn't know to use Tide. To not knowing how to throw a ball to his kid (Volkswagen) because he was too busy being successful. Subtle suggestions.
Our perverse media typecasts it like this:
The 30-40 something year old male is always the sex-crazed teenager who still plays video games and doesn't know how to dress or approach women. He wears skinny jeans and is told how to have his look by his woman.
The woman is a successful 'lady', who wouldn't mind discreetly sleeping with his friend or trying it with a female coworker. Its 'ok' to experiment say the women's mags. Men should stay home and let her be successful while he does laundry, and cook.
As a society...
We need to be trendy like our Hollywood role models. Telling us we need to play games that kill zombies to desensitize us to killing people, we need to buy all the latest gadgets and document everything we do by electronic means so later in life it will haunt us. We definitely need to spend $500 for a special meaningful tattoo with far east symbols to show what an individual idiot we are pretending to fit in, instead of investing that money or taking a non-credit course to better ourselves.
We subconsciously hate people who have way more money than us and think somehow they just got lucky not realizing they probably busted their ass and worked hard to get to where they are and we didn't. Instead of admiring some of them as role models to achieve something greater. We'd much rather admire rappers and pretend to be some loser from the hood.
The news is plastered with gay this and gay that. We got to give them 'equal rights' to the point that any church who doesn't let them in we take away their 501 tax status. -- So much for religious freedom. Next we'll give equal rights to the polygamists, eventually the pedophiles. After all they want eventually to have pornography as a tasteful art form.
They love when there is some wacko who goes on shooting people. its their opportunity to talk about banning those evil guns, instead of seriously addressing mental health. Eventually when they take all the guns away then they can pass laws like in England, Egypt, and Russia. Insult your leaders with a different opinion? -- You go directly to jail.
Seriously, Time to wake up America.
For women or men.
My mother saved up her vacation days and took the time off without claiming maternity leave. No one needs it.
She was out of work for about two weeks tops and then back in work again.
Companies pay you to work. Part of what is screwing up the economy is all the people that think they should be paid when they don't work. We have some people that get two or more months of vacation a year... paid. As well as all sorts of sick days which aren't vacation days but which are effectively the same thing since you can use them the exact same way. And then you have maternity leave. And then you have some places with 3 to 4 hour lunch breaks leaving about 2 to 3 hours of total work. That's unusual... but there are places where that is "normal."
And uniformly when this sort of thing goes rampant the businesses dumb enough to support them die.
Now, Yahoo is not Google. They do not have money flowing out of their ears. They if they pay people they need to actually have them accomplish something of value to Yahoo.
What I'm saying here is that we should curb our expectations to something reasonable. Should women be able to take time off to care for children or babies or whatever? Sure. But the company likewise doesn't need to pay them for that. And if the men want to take time off to do the same they can also not be paid while doing the same. If they want to get paid, they need to show up for work.
Is the above not what people want to hear? Welcome to the real world. It isn't made of unicorns and rainbows.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Any time with a new baby is good, and I wish I had worked at a company like that after the births of my children. Asking if new dads need that time is moronic though, the time is about bonding. The more time you spend with your child, the more protective you will feel toward them. A man that spent weeks with his child is less likely to walk away from his family. Giving men the short end of the maternity/paternity stick is really just shafting the kid. That kid is more likely to have a dad that wraps himself up in work when family life is too hectic.
Any woman has, by law, a PAID maternity leave of 16 weeks. In Brazil, a frikking third world country. And the US chooses to do worst.
I figured that the title alone would give people enough of an idea of what it entailed without bringing up the disgusting details.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's true that men and women are different. But what you describe as the basis of modern feminism is simply the basis of statist utopianism, the common faith of nanny-staters. Modern feminism is based on an entirely different and contradictory premise - that men are the root of all evil, and women are inherently oriented towards the good and only do evil as a result of evil men having power over them.
The two premises are logically incompatible yet a many modern feminist nanny-staters seem to hold both simultaneously so I can understand the confusion.
And despite agreeing that, clearly, men and women are different, I disagree that the law should recognise that difference. All individuals are different (even more different than men and women!) but equality under the law is fundamental. Of course the law probably shouldnt be involved in post-spawn leave either...
And about that leave. Yes, men and women are different. But nothing in that difference prevents a father from taking care of that baby. There are even single fathers, women sometimes die in delivery, imagine that. Add insult to injury by giving said newly-single new father less maternity leave than a single mother? Is the father getting anything else in the deal here or are the male employees actually subsidising the benefits of the females?
Recognising that men and women are different isnt sexism, but designing something important like a benefits package around gender stereotypes (even if they are not completely false) just might be. It's one thing to recognise that statistically women are more likely to use leave for a particular purpose, it's another to simply give them more days for nothing more than possessing a vagina. If I were a woman I think I would find this policy slightly insulting.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
BREASTS
Bonding is largely a matter of care. Evidence says that adopted infants and infant children of single dads do not suffer from the psychological disorders that commonly proceed from poor parental bonding.
Now the data do tell us that amongst the sample populations that we have, your data is accurate—the bond between mothers and children is, on average, stronger. But your reasoning about the cause is wrong.
It is precisely because there is a strong cultural bias offering (or requiring of) women far more caretaking that the numbers tell us that more bonding occurs. You're putting the cart before the horse—it's not that children bond with mom because she's a woman, it's that because she's a women, children have infinitely greater opportunity to bond with mom.
It's primarily a social outcome, not a biological one.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This will last until the first law-suit and I suspect the reward will be sizable since the CEO is female he can claim a continuous and on-going discrimination against men across the board, and since men are tired of the double standard, it will be interesting if she stay in power after the class-action law-suit...
Women of childbearing age are statistically at higher risk than others for being lower performers for a company in the long term, both during and after pregnancy
Please provide link(s) to said studies with said statistics.
I laid that out very concisely myself, by pointing out that women would have to sustain a higher than average efficiency to make up for not being there when on leave. My basis of assumptions for the thought experiment (and belief in real life) is that men and women have very similar IQs and can be recruited at similar strengths and abilities to perform a given job. I suppose there are some jobs where the workers are pretty much cookie-cutters and interchangeable; but in the kind of jobs I care about, it matters very much having each specific member of the team there, and you notice if somebody's contribution is absent... even for the noblest of reasons, which care of a newborn certainly is.
And mods, please do NOT +1 Informative such posts without links. They certainly can generate interesting discussion, but not without something to substantiate their viewpoint.
Do your own moderating, Mr/Ms. AC. :p
and then have to squeeze a lot milk out
that requires a lot of recuperation
i believe this basic biological difference is due some consideration with extra time off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When we give women more time off than men to take care of an infant (and that's what parental leave is mostly for), we are strengthening the notion that the mother is the better person to take care of a baby. And what about women who don't *want* to take so much time off from work? My wife is a researcher running her own lab, and needed to get back to work as soon as she could after our son was born. Fortunately, I was working part-time and I could be a stay-at-home dad (with some babysitting assistance). But suppose I had a similar job to hers, and the University said "OK, she can have 12 weeks off but you can only have 6", isn't that putting added pressure on her to take the leave, regardless of the relative importance of our positions? Isn't it telling her "We can spare you a lot more easily than we can spare your husband, because he's a man"?
So I see no reason for women to cheer this disparity.
Give both of them NO goddamn paid leave.
If you can't afford children - don't have them. Why do I need to subsidise your breeding?
I work in gov and the amount of days off I see people take because of sick children "compassionate leave" or maternity / paternity leave - it's just mind boggling. So I pay more tax, don't get bonus's while people busting out children left right and centre are being spoon fed my money.
Nope, you breed it, you pay for it.
Such a law will surely result in court cases in the Federal courts. And there is also room for a third view i think. In many positions an
employer may correctly believe that people who wish to have children are not his best bet in filling job openings. Consider the single male or female. Should they not receive equal time off for their needs? Should the employer be forced to be blind to the fact that he needs employees dedicated to the work and not a bunch of breeders. People who are into the baby game do not see the view that it is just their hobby. Tennis or reading might be far better hobbies than having kids just as tennis might be a far better hobby than owning horses with all the work and expense that they generate.
As far as society goes we need far, far less, newborns. We work against ourselves. ford develops a cleaner burning engine that pollutes only half as much but population growth puts so many more car engines on the street that the advances made in engine design mean nothing at all. To make progress we need better engines and far less drivers on the road. Babies are exactly like that.
Realistically women need some physical recovery time that men do not, especially if they have a C-section.
That said, I'm *so* happy to be in Canada where we can take up to a year of parental leave, most of which can be taken by either parent.
I have no problem with a woman that gave birth getting some time to rest up and recuperate...especially after a C-section.
That said, the bigger problem in the USA is that you *only* get 8/16 weeks. Up here in Canada we get a year of partially paid leave, some of which is reserved for the mother but most of which can be taken by either parent.
I only took 3 weeks off work for each of my kids, but I work from home so I'm also available if needed during the day.
Use a condom?
If someone feels that way, they're not that much of a Dad. And if the attitude of not giving men the same amount of paternity leave as women persists at Yahoo!, that's not really saying much about equality, non-discrimination and a forward-thinking company.
You can clean up code your entire life but your little ones are only little for a short time and that time won't come back ever.
I take it the poster doesn't have children. I'll take taking care of my kids anyday. I'll be looking at code for the rest of my working life one way or another but my kids, they are my joy!
(Elegance is not an option)
Why is anyone complaining when the men get 8 WEEKS of paid leave? Most companies that I've heard of only give a week for the men.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Also, feminazis? Really? Nice strawman you've got yourself there. If you knew ANYTHING, anything at about feminism, had spent any time in actual feminist spaces, you'd know feminists are some of the first people advocating hard for paid "parental leave" that is the same for everyone.
And yeah. They don't scream bloody murder about women getting 12 weeks of paid leave vs 8 weeks for the men if a company offers it, because it represents a huge giant step forward from the status quo. (Though there will be some criticism for it). Instead, they advocate for more leave, and more leave offered to both parents, but they're hardly going to try and get rid of it, rather than trying to fix it. Jesus Christ. It's not rocket science.
Even throwing out the whole moral or ethical side of things, from a purely corporate perspective it makes no sense.
A perfect example, is that a few years ago I was working on a project that included a particular DB dev. Part way though the project she leaves on parental leave. Another is assigned. She has to start pretty much from scratch and be brought up to speed. A few months later, she goes on leave. Another is assigned. Repeat. The last one managed to stick around until completion. But the project was very delayed by this. For myself I was frustrated and couldn't believe the manager assigned several pregnant women to my project in a row. Then again, managers are likely not supposed to discriminate against that. Fine. They have those rights and I would never argue against that, however from a purely empirical perspective of getting work done for a project... sorry it happens. Women get pregnant and leave the workplace/projects. Even allowing for men to do the same, it is more often and longer.
I look around me and most women I have worked with have had at least one or two at this point over a period of the last few years. This means you are supporting a work force of nearly half that are not actually "working". Meanwhile I have been here the whole time working for years more than many of them. Then when you think about pay level and seniority, etc... how is that fair to men? Anyway that is not to say that I won't participate in having a child or taking time off, however I haven't thus far...
Anyway it is a double standard. Actually there was an author that recently was on the CBC promoting his new book, and he actually had the balls to point out that statistically women actually shouldn't make as much money as men simply because they do not work as much due to pregnancy. If you are trying to be totally fair, and not getting into the morality argument etc...
In principle I think home schooling would be the way to go given an ideal situation as you describe. Unfortunately I would say in 99.9999% of the cases of homeschooling, this is NOT the case. Much more likely is that they have some weird beliefs that most of society doesn't subscribe to and they don't want their children to be influenced by say a public education, which might *gasp* actually educate them.
As a result whenever I hear about someone that was "home schooled", I am immediately filled with skepticism about how normal, un-weird, and not fucked up they are. Seems most are taught to believe the earth is 5000 years old, or that humans rode dinosaurs, or that Jews are bad, or any of a host of unlikely or offensive things.
I know of perhaps one couple that might be able to do it that would (they are slightly hippy), as I would consider the mother very smart and not ignorant (was grasping for a better word and gave up), and as it is I believe the kids likely (or will) go to public school, but I could see her additionally augmenting their education (which is probably the way to go anyway if you have the time and ability).
I guess that we have different perspectives on what "modern feminism" entails. I dont think its fair to say that it is at its base as mysandric as you would have it, at least not the version adopted here in Norway. Feminism comes in many flavors, and your post is actually quite feminist in the sense that you advocate not making distinctions between the sexes.
Anyway, here in Norway the metric for measuring gender equality is the ratio of sexes in high power positions. Equality is defined as having an even 50/50 distribution of the sexes in high power positions, which is just a pipe dream, since men are inherently more ambitious with their careers.
Heres the crux though, we do want women to have careers. Not because of politcal ideals, but because we need the labour. We know women will often choose to leave their jobs to take care of their family. I dont see why we wouldn't try to make it easier for them to combine family and careers. If more women kept working that would benefit us all. I'm not saying we should pay them more or lower the bar for them, but some concessions are needed. I could see a lot of women just quitting and finding other work that is more compatible with being a parent, whereas men would rarely do this.
Yes its "sexist", and considering the outrageous demands and claims feminists make I can understand the reaction to oppose them on any and all issues. God knows they would if the tables were turned. I just think we would be better of we were more pragmatic about these issues. They are talking about starting mandatory military service for women, since we have if for men. Sure it would be fair, after all men have to. Doesn't make it less ridiculous IMO.
You do have different strands of thought that are called feminism, and importantly individual feminists who, as individuals, think differently. Camille Paglia and Wendy McElroy are a couple of my favourites. But what I tend to see much more prominently packaged with that word are nanny-statisms which rule out individualists like that and you get a spectrum essentially from Andrea Dworkin to Anna Hutsol, with a fundamental misandry and a determination to make people behave by force the common denominator. It isnt always as in your face and unmistakeable of course, but it's implied where it is not outright stated.
Who is this "we" that wants women to have careers? I want women to have a choice in the matter. "We" need the labour in modern welfare states because the non-productive sector of society has grown too fat and too entitled. Have you ever thought about how only 80 or 100 years ago it was still possible for regular people, commoners if you will, to support a family well on a single income, and our technology and productivity have only increased dramatically since then, yet today that is not a realistic possibility for most people. I dont agree with the presumption of some earlier ages that this was simply a womans place (and neither did everyone in those times) but neither do I agree with this presumption that the option should not be open to them, or that they need to be bullied or propagandised or 'educated' to desire something else instead, or that 'we' should imagine ourselves as part and parcel of the non-productive sector or rulers rather than identifying just as much with the productive sector, the commoners, the plebians who did not care about the glory of wars and killing so much as the crop outlook and providing for their families.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Here in Canada it's the same, dads only get 5 weeks off and moms get almost a year off paid. It really sucks. As a dad I'm allowed to take a year off but only 5 weeks will be paid, the rest I had to put money aside for it. Really sucks, because I want to bond with the kid too, and my wife needs me to help and support her.
I never said women should be forced to do anything. What I am saying is that it's in everyone's interests that women work, so it's in everyone's interests to enable women who want a family and a career to be able to have both. Why we need them isn't really relevant. Extended maternity leave helps women have both a family and a career. It might not seem fair but in the end everyone wins.
Cleaning up diapers smells less. Their poop doesn't get stinky for month if they are breast fed.
I didn't say feminists because I didn't mean feminists. I am male and I am a feminist. I believe men and women should be treated equally under the law and should not be discriminated against solely based on their gender unless there is a good, physiological reason to do so. For example, women's bathrooms should not need to contain urinals even though that is a form of discrimination. Femnazi's are radical, rabid people who hate men and think all men are out to get and oppress all women. Femnazi's, as I described, fight to end all discriminatory practices against women but hold onto discriminatory practices against men.
I'm all for equal gender rights but that key to that is equal rights. If a mother can get 18 months off then a father must be able to get 18 months off, if a father gets 8 weeks the mother gets 8 weeks. What bothers me about this mostly is the fact that women will complain until it's mandated it but the second men speak up it's sexist and suppresses women's rights. If your going to fight for things to be equal then make them equal, tipping the sea-saw over to the other side just shifts the problem. So again I support gender equality but that means being equal as in 1 == 1.
I got to be a stay-at-home dad once, for about a month, which was about as long as my ex-wife ever held a job. When the unemployment ran out (back in the days when you couldn't get "extensions" to benefits so a President looked better) it was back to me to get the bills paid and sacrifice dignity for the Good of the Family.
My day was: Get wife outta bed and make breakfast & pack her lunch. Then chase 1 year old slightly hyperactive boy around the house, or strap him into his seat and ride the bike to a local park.When he got nappy, ride home and place him down for his nap (like clockwork almost). then throw clothes into the washer/dryer (every other day laundry day) and play videogames for about an hour. (I didn't get into soap operas). wait for little one to wake up and demand attention. Chase, wrestle with, throw ball, read book, etc with small one until time to make dinner. Son goes into backpack, walker or in little gated area within sight of the kitchen.
On no laundry days, do the cleaning. If necessessary, replace "go to park" with "run errands that can't be done during the week."
I was a GOD to my son during those times-Superman and Batman with a side of Jesus rolled into one. I could see it in his eyes. Naps, fun times, discipline, food, discovery, comfort-it all came from ME. I made a schedule and stuffed everything I needed to do into it. And I watched my boy grow. It was ME who caught the first steps. What I did had actual rewards that I benefitted from. No meeting bullsh*t. No worries about office politics. No commute. And my "customer" while sometimes verbally demanding, always ended up honestly grateful.
hearing women complain about this drives me nuts. How hard is it to do things while junior naps? pretty easy. You don't gotta watch laundry for 2 hours, you only interact with it for a few minutes other than folding-which becomes yet another game- "Where's Ryan? Under the pile?" "sock monster attack!" The ex bitched constantly about her "difficulties" with an active son. I told her I would support her whenever she felt like going back to work.
I keep hoping my current wife discovers a way to monetize her hobbies enough to make ends meet so I could do this again. But at 41, my days of being a hero to a baby are pretty much over. Still, good memories. Happy Birthday (in a few days anyway) my son.
Big deal. We can all do it. Why don't I get extra time off for not polluting the planet with unnecessary human beings, irrespective of my gender?
Feminazis are a straw man. I've been very, very active in feminist and social justice circles, and i have never met these fable man-haters who want to oppress men. It's nothing more than the same old bull that people have been using to tar feminists since at least the early 19th century.
Men are discriminated in business (quotas), in divorce, in the news and in the justice system. Otherwise, we're treated equally.
Seems that it adds it adds up to 16 weeks. Better than the 15m some cultures used to give moms!l
Good-men will be seen as less of a liability-I wouldn't hire women under 50 anyway.
I took a women's studies class (Women, Gender, Religion, and Society) in college and roughly a third of the class were feminazis. They are not a fabled creature, they are real. We read papers written by femninazis, one of which talked about how Catholicism was invented by men for the sole purpose of oppressing women. The few men in the room would get glares as people discussed the papers discussing why men are evil and how the world would be a much better place if it were run by women. I won't disagree that they have been used to malign feminists but that doesn't mean they aren't real and don't have any impact. The people who are heard the most are the people who scream the loudest. Feminazis are pissed off, scream loudly, and are active in the court system. You can pretend they don't exist if you wish but you aren't doing anyone any favors.