7 ms·

Obviously I’m a women’s rights maximalist, but I’d like to point out something else fundamentally wrong with the thrust of these policies: they’re aimed at prod

• CalRobert 8y ago
  One way of handling this is making paternity and maternity leave nearly equal, and mandatory. Making maternity a bit longer could make sense given that there's a lot of physical recuperation involved, but mainly employers shouldn't see one or the other as a liability.
  • consp 8y ago
    Say what you like, but even if you get back all the cost from the government for paying the maternaty leave, you are still missing a valued worker which is not easily replaced. You have some lead time to find a replacement but that is not easy in all professions and even harder for smaller companies.
    • mcny 8y ago
      I think they are saying give the same rights to take vacation to the father. It doesn’t matter who pays for it. I somewhat agree. If we want to level the playing field, we can’t have extra rights and priveleges for women because clearly they become a liability. I think it is necessary but not sufficient though. I read here about github and the unlimited vacation policy which in practice is a no vacation policy. Just because men can take off doesn’t mean they will at least in the short term. We must keep this policy stable for decades to effect change.
      • kgwgk 8y ago
        When something is mandatory it's no longer a "right".
        • gambiting 8y ago
          In the EU it's mandatory for my employer to provide at least 25 days of paid time off per year. It's my right to take it, but I don't have to if I don't want to. The "mandatory" part is on the employer - they have to provide everyone with 25 days of paid holidays, unlimited paid sick leave, maternity/paternity leave - but it's not mandatory to take any of those for the employee - that's where the "right" part comes in.
          • kgwgk 8y ago
            I think that when CalRobert says > One way of handling this is making paternity and maternity leave nearly equal, and mandatory. "mandatory" means making paternity leave compulsory for employees. I could be wrong, though.
            • CalRobert 8y ago
              I meant mostly making it such that if you don't use it, you lose it. This works pretty well with vacation times in places that don't have utterly poisonous work cultures. For those places that do, I don't know what the answer is.
        • eftychis 8y ago
          Not really. Something can be a right and an obligation at the same time. For instance there is the right to vote. Historically, in certain periods and countries vote was/is mandatory. (e.g. Greece) Sometimes, a right or measure has to become mandatory to ensure people enjoy it.
          • fwn 8y ago
            I always wondered whether mandatory voting isn't just a plain duty, like paying taxes. If you get penalized for not voting all the modern democratic idealism which portraits voting as a right is pretty stale. I completely get why the classic Greeks came up with it, though. They were obviously far more tribal in their culture.
      • belorn 8y ago
        A level playing field might not go far enough. When we see government or organization that tries to get more women into areas where they are an minority, most of the time the money goes exclusively to them. The argument usually is that there is no reason to spend money and resources on the majority. Following such common practice then all maternity leave (and funds for that) should go to the fathers and only the minimal amount needed for recuperation to the mothers. The policy can then be leveled out if and when men start to take out more time than mothers.
    • moomin 8y ago
      I think Cal's proposal deserves consideration. (It's probably still game-able.) The problem isn't that maternity leave disrupts companies individual companies. So does sleep, and they're both part of normal human life. The problem is that the system in effect has the effect of a) discriminating against woman and b) suppressing the birth rate. If you are planning at a national level, suppressing the birth rate for a tiny economic boost right now is a high road to nowhere.
      • badestrand 8y ago
        > suppressing the birth rate And the birth rate will go up if men are forbidden to work for half a year when having a child? That seems highly doubtful, it might as well go further down because some people actually like their work.
  • zimablue 8y ago
    Mandatory paternity leave! Can we do a straw poll of how many people think that if you have a child the government gets to tell you how long to quit your job for!?
    • jknightco 8y ago
      There are cultural differences here, specifically those that involve what the concept of "liberty" means in practice. Americans tend to focus on freedom "to", which is exactly what you're talking about here: employees should be free to choose whether or not they take maternity/paternity. Europeans tend to focus on freedom "from", i.e. employees should be from from worrying about whether the decision to take maternity/paternity will hold them back or not. You can frame it the way you have if you want to, but to some cultures, having the government tell people what they can and can't do is the only way to ensure true liberty for all.
      • fwn 8y ago
        I'm an European and I strongly believe in the freedom from getting told when to quit my job. ...that is just to examplify that the freedom from/to distinction requires a very specific worldview to function as a robust differentiator.
      • zimablue 8y ago
        I'm British and pretty left wing, don't assume that it's all tribal. Granted my post sounded quite American. The government forcing you to take time off is absolutely mental to me. Think of the edge cases => what if I'm not planning to bring up the kid? What if I want lots and lots of children? What if it's an absolutely vital time for me at work, partnerships are coming up or something. What if I'm self-employed? Then think about how possible choices for these edge cases lead to messed up situations. I can imagine people pretending not to be bringing up their children so that the government doesn't mess with their lives. I see how you can frame it as "freedom not to have reproduction affect your career". But for one thing that still won't work. Time off is time off and income correlates with total hours worked in your life. For another, I don't think all of society agrees that we should pay for your freedom to have children without incurring any costs. We don't need more children, the world population is still increasing. There's this strange train of logic now that because aging populations become poor (because we massively overpromised on pensions) we need native children. 1. We can use immigration. 2. If your system cannot support the decreasing population necessary for the world to get through the next centuries, you need to fix the system not encourage breeding. Also what about incels, gay people, people who just don't want children? Why on earth are they paying for straight middle class peoples ability not to have their kids interfere with their law career.
  • hucker 8y ago
    That is basically the case in Norway. Both the mother and the father gets 15 weeks mandatory each, and the rest (of a full year) is divided between them as they themselves see fit, iirc.
  • Gustomaximus 8y ago
    This is what happens in Norway to some extent. You are given 12 months parental leave to share between the couple. The mother has to take 6 months. The father 3. The remaining 3 are decided by the couple. That's oversimplified as there more options and scenarios but the fairly common situation. Like you say it takes away women being seen as such a liability from becoming mothers from what I saw in my little bubble while living there for a few years. Also as fathers have all this time off it encourages the mother back to the workforce. And for me it really helped in my day to day baby duties involvement. I've brought this up many times to people pushing for better women's rights in the workforce as something they should fight for if they do want a more equal workplace vs more an egocentric position of leave/benefits for themself.
    • hucker 8y ago
      This was changed to a 15/15 week split this summer I believe (with the remainder still split as the couple sees fit).
      • Gustomaximus 8y ago
        Ah thanks for updating, I left Norway almost 6 years ago so out of date.
• mcny 8y ago
  Personally, I think we should reject this “freedom” to have more children or to have children at all. Of course, the individual should make the choice to not have children but the fact that community doesn’t want to pay people to have and raise children makes me think all children are unwanted children. People laugh at the idea of it takes a village to raise a child. I thought the idea was so painfully obvious that it doesn’t need to be said. Clearly not. I say this to everyone: in order to effect change, we must strike. Don’t have children. Speaking of obvious things: my child is no more precious than anyone else’s child. I think the compromise will be some kind of a one child policy here as well. I think this is more humane alternative to what we have now. My proposed new one child policy is to incentivize people to have a child or to adopt one child with additional taxpayer money. The compromise is to limit it only to the first child. You’re on your own if you want more. I think it is worth considering.
  • derefr 8y ago
    > the fact that community doesn’t want to pay people to have and raise children makes me think all children are unwanted children In a globalized world with the ability to move for work, children might still be an economic net-positive for the parents (once you account for how much they’d be willing to pay to replicate their genes into the next generation) but they’re probably a net-negative for the community they’re raised in. What benefits does introducing a new human being, as a baby, into a community provide said community, these days?
    • ericd 8y ago
      It provides the continuation of that community and its values.
      • derefr 8y ago
        No, that’s what you get when a young, productive adult joins a community and enculturates to it. It’s why universities are happy to “adopt” new human beings into their communities: they can charge you for your net-negative production years at the university (undergrad), turning them into net-zero years; and then they will begin getting net-positive returns from you (either through TAing during graduate studies; or researching for your Ph.D and then having your IP confiscated and profited off of; or just going into industry and then making large alumni donations.) Your community will only get net-negative returns when a human is raised through their teenage years in your community, and then leaves, gets enculturated by some other community, and never comes back. This usually breeds resentment—think lower-class urban youth who go on to university and enculturate to the upper-middle-class culture there. If they come back to visit their old family and friends, they will see them as “acting as if they’re too good for us.” The resentment is usually for a good reason: once you’ve enculturated away from your home culture, you don’t tend to care much about it any more! So, unlike people who retain their home culture in another community, you won’t do things like sending money home to family, or coming back to help build or lead the community, once you have acquired the resources to do so.
• DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I don't wish to be obtuse, but why would it be obvious that you're a women's-rights maximalist?
  • moomin 8y ago
    Past posting on social issues. (You're not required to read it all, don't worry.:) ) I just wanted to make the point that, although I do support women's rights, what I was saying was valid even if you didn't.
• Leary 8y ago
  The obvious thrust of these policies aims at scaling down the rights of women's genius. Successful as these children may be, they will be unwanted.