I totally get your point, and from a capitalist perspective the solution of the media company in the article dis-incentivises hiring women as a dollar per hour of work metric instantly makes hiring a woman less cost effective.
I've seen comments like men don't have the day of pain, so don't "need the holiday" but these people obviously don't own a business or pay other peoples wages. When you are a small business you ensure that you hire people based on the maximum return on investment based on skillset and deliverables. If you have 2 identically skilled and equally hard working employees but one works 12 days less per year and gets the same money, you would hire the one who delivers 12 extra days. If you ignore the sex of the applicants and it was down to a purely financial decision (as it always should be in business, especially publicly traded businesses) then you would be neglecting your responsibilities if you hire someone who costs more and delivers less.
The solution may be simply allow flexi-time. Each member of staff must fulfil X number of hours per week, month, year or whatever slice you decide, and when its performed is up to them. This wouldn't work with List-X or restricted sites, where work must be performed on site, but for something like a media company I'm sure you could work from many suitable locations.