Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
...The fact his having children is a choice and taking a year off should put you a year or more behind on the corporate ladder. This is a choice made by a couple when they choose to have children. They also get to decide between themselves who will take the career hit. There is nothing discriminatory here. Only that in practice women generally CHOOSE to be the ones who take a year off.
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I generally agree, although I do not think that practically speaking this amounts to an example of gender equality. Do women and men really have the same choice in this matter? Parental leave is an option for men, but at some point it is primarily a requirement for women. I would hold that women are biologically predisposed to interrupt their participation in the workforce, given that they alone can bear children. This fundamental and non-correctable difference between men and women is indeed a form of "inequity" that interferes with a woman's participation in the workforce. Furthermore, I also think that there are biological / social predispositions that contribute to the overwhelmingly high instances in which women "choose" to be the primary caregiver for their children. It amounts to maternal instinct, and is nearly impossible to quantify, but it is universal, and—I believe—also not correctable. This too presents itself as another gender inequity that will always interfere with the inane desire for "equal status" or "rights" that are demanded in our society.