>What’s needed now is action. Why not start with mandatory paternity leave?
This is called politician's syllogism.
1. We must do something 2. This is something 3. Therefore, we must do this.
It's a logical fallacy.
Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
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Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#52Can we stop linking and upvoting these article on HN, I've seen several in the last few months. I don't see a clear link to hacker culture, if anything it's less relevant to developers as we often have some form of flexible working already. The link I can see is that it's part of the gender culture war that has somehow become focussed on SV.
> I don't see a clear link to hacker culture
It's good advice for how to run my company.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#53I'm in favour of a set amount of parental leave that can be shared between spouses in whatever ratio they choose. I don't understand how depriving families of choices is going to be a good thing. Example: You and your husband would like to breastfeed your baby for the first 6 months but you are unable to express? Too bad, your husband has to take paternity leave and you will have to go back to work. From my experienc…
I don't understand how depriving families
of choices is going to be a good thing.
Consider the prisoners' dilemma [1], where the global optimum is for neither side to defect, but the Nash equilibrium is for both sides to defect. If both sides could be deprived of the choice to defect, both would enjoy a better outcome.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
“What’s valuable for men...” It begins with “Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap”. Not, what would be valuable for men. A woman who just gave birth just spent an increasingly personally costly, and completely requisite (so long as the pregnancy is wanted), nine months simply getting to the maternity leave portion of the process. I can’t immagi how a woman would perceive for men to gawk at it even…
I meant valuable in terms of what I was contributing to the family ... when I took 9 months of part-time paternity leave. I feel like you didn’t really think about what I was saying. All of this was the result of lots of planning and long discussions between the two of us about how we would take care of our son, and how this would affect each of our careers — you really don’t need to lecture me here.
Narrowing the wage gap is not about the family. It’s about the wage gap. It’s about women getting less pay for the same work. It’s about women. Not the family.
I’m not lecturing you. And I’m not a woman.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#55Make men stay at home for paternity leave? I have a coworker fighting for the ability to stay at home for parental leave.
If you read the article you see why: men who take it are liable to face consequences ("what, you are so unimportant that the company can do with out you?") that clearly also affect women.
The article discusses that if you make it mandatory you get the company culture to adapt that parental leave should not be a career-affecting thing.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#56It would have been a more interesting article had it also went into the downsides of this approach. One specific concern is that mandatory paternity leave may discourage men from becoming fathers, further decreasing the birth rate which is already quite low in many advanced economies. Another is that if taking paternity leave impacts men's careers, then in many cases both parents will suffer such an impact, further d…
Lowering the birth rates is the number one thing we can do to save the planet so I see that as a positive thing.
The planet will be here long after humanity.
Cue George Carlin: https://amp.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/33jmhl/george_carli...
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would this push any woman away from the choice to be a mother? And why should someone who wants to be a mother and a careerist have to accept more career penalties than someone who wants to be a father and careerist? And why should a woman who doesn't want children have to pay a penalty for the choices of those who do?
I'm a childless woman. This is by choice. I might consider adoption, but I have absolutely no desire to be pregnant nor give birth. I'm 40, by the way, and have known I didn't want children for at least 25 years. I'm happy to give parents time off. I'm happy parents get more sick days where I'm at to take care of their young children. I'm happy my taxes, in part, go to this. We actually need children. And parents hav…
I agree. I just don’t understand why offering (and enthusiastically encouraging people to take) as much paternity leave as maternit leave would be a negative thing in this context.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#58There should be a system that every n years you get a 6-month paid sabbatical that can be used for any purpose - studying, traveling, having a kid, anything. Because consider two women, one who wants kids and one who doesn’t. Why should woman 2 be disadvantaged? Isn’t that the exact opposite of equality?
The point is that none should be disadvantaged.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#59Why do we want equality if it means pushing women away from the motherhood they choose?
Indeed, this is precisely why this is such a good idea! It doesn't push anyone towards or away from having kids.
Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would this push any woman away from the choice to be a mother? And why should someone who wants to be a mother and a careerist have to accept more career penalties than someone who wants to be a father and careerist? And why should a woman who doesn't want children have to pay a penalty for the choices of those who do?
> And why should a woman who doesn't want children have to pay a penalty for the choices of those who do? For the same reason that men do. After all, society as a whole has decided for some reason that children are a good thing, and that the cost of having them should be born by all, even those without.
Except that right now women who don’t want children experience a hiring penalty that men who don’t want children (and even men who do want children) don’t experience - due to an assumption that any given woman will take parental leave that any given man won’t.