Comments on: The Motherhood Myth (wage gap series, part 5)

By: Avedon

Avedon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I noticed while I was still in college the interesting phenomenon of young women in engineering who did very well in terms of grades, performance, etc., who had to hit the pavement looking for work, while guys who were at best C average types had already been recruited well before graduation and knew they had jobs waiting as soon as they had their degree. And once my female friends were employed, it was clear they were making less than their male collegues. And that was at a time when everyone kept repeating that “a female engineer can write her own ticket.” It was just bull. It still is.

But even if a woman is a mother, most upper-level jobs aren’t in dangerous environments where it would be impossible to have childcare on the premises, so why should women have to take time off from work to raise kids? Well, they don’t, it’s just the way (sexist) society happens to be set up.

But, yes, it’s bloody easy to leave a crappy “career” behind and let someone else support you in a home where you are the real boss, rather than put up with being paid peanuts and talked down to for 40 hours a week. If men had the same choice, I bet they’d get used to being house-husbands real fast.

By: Raznor

Raznor — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Well, there is a period of time after a baby is born where the baby can’t really be brought to any work environment and would need round-the-clock care from parents. A solution to this dilemma I’ve heard of being utilized in some Scandinavian countries is to require parental leave for both parents. ie, a mother and father would both be required to take some number of months off within a short time after the child’s birth, and employers have to be able to compensate this.

I don’t know much about this, but this seems to be the best way to work towards eliminating the motherhood penalty.

By: bean

bean — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Raznor, that’s close, but not exactly right. There have been government policies which have encouraged men to take parental leaves, but they are not required — for men or women.

Essentially, the parental leave policies have changed in some Scandanavian countries so that both parents must take a “parental leave” if they want the full length of the payments. Many of the countries found that the vast majority of women were taking advantage of the parental leave policies, but few men were (in Sweden, the number was as low as 20% of men using any parental leave). In order to encourage more men to take parental leave, the policies have changed so that instead of one parent taking a year-long leave, both parents must take some time in order to get the full-year. One parent (either mother or father) can take up to about 7 - 10 months (depending on the country), and the other parent must take the remaining months in order to continue receiving the parental leave pay.

I was fortunate enough to talk to Michael Kimmel shortly after he returned from Sweden and Norway where he was working on this program (called “Daddy Days”) with the governments there. Since the implementation of “Daddy Days,” the number of men taking parental leave has increased to 90% of new fathers taking the leave.

Another thing Kimmel was working on with the governments was incentives for companies to help with the parental leave pay. As it is, the government will pay 80% of the parent’s pay while they are on parental leave. The new incentives encourage companies to pay the remaining 20%, so that new parents continue to receive 100% of their pay.

By: Alexia

Alexia — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I am a San Francisco artist looking for writings about motherhood! Go to my blog at http://motherthejob.blogspot.com/ and please submit something for my upcoming exhibit. I have been having a tough time getting people to participate but personal writings are an intricate part of the exhibit. Your thoughts and help are greatly appreciated!

By: Creative Destruction

Creative Destruction — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

s on average lower wages is that women who are mothers tend to spend less time in the workforce (both in terms of years in the workforce, and in terms of how many hours worked per year) while they take care of their children. As I wrote in an earlier post, many feminists believe that in a non-sexist society, fathers and mothers would share equally in childcare - or at least, that fathers would take on a larger degree of childcare than they do now. Therefore, any

By: feminist blogs

feminist blogs — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

reason for women’s on average lower wages is that women who are mothers tend to spend less time in the workforce (both in terms of years in the workforce, and in terms of how many hours worked per year) while they take care of their children. As I wrote in an earlier post, many feminists believe that in a non-sexist society, fathers and mothers would share equally in childcare - or at least, that fathers would take on a larger degree of childcare than they do now. Therefore, any “parenting wage penalty” in a nonsexist