The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...
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Rancid Schnitzel said:
No Quarter said:
The situation for mothers is interesting, and there's no easy answer either. The structure of society when it comes to the roles of men and women is radically different these days to what it was even 50 years ago.
I think there are massive benefits to having children as early as possible. That way when women do start getting positions of responsibility in their 30s, time off to care for young children is not such an issue.
I don't think that's a great solution though, more a workaround to how thing work at the moment. Ideally, and I was rightfully called out on this in the NZ Pol thread with regards to Jacinda, a woman should not be punished for having children. There is a lot of variation to how companies deal with this - I imagine it would be very hard for a small business to cater for a staff member taking a full year off, whereas some of the larger corporations have really good policies in place to ensure the woman returns to the same role and even paying out lost earnings while on leave should they return and stay.
This is probably a point where I am on board with some of the lefts policies - more financial support for mothers, particularly young mothers - to ensure they are able to have a family with as little impact financially and career wise as possible.
I saw a story on the news recently, TBH I don't remember all the details, but basically a woman that was studying lost her student allowance after having a child which was just so wrong.
In the end it's all about sacrifice. As I see it, men are more willing to sacrifice their free time and time spent with their family for their careers and/or cash. To their credit, not nearly as many women are like that and will therefore not make those kinds of sacrifices. That will of course be reflected in how much the respective sexes earn.
Yeah, for sure. The drive for many women to spend time with their kids instead of working is biological. Now my boy is at school and has made friends we've gotten to know some of the parents - nearly all of the other mums are either part-time or not working, choosing to stay at home. They do this because they can afford too - they and their husbands are/were both high earners so the drive for money pales in comparison to time with their children.
I've seen studies that show the gender pay gap nearly disappears among low earning households (will have to look it up when I have time). Rich people contribute a lot to the pay gap as women who would be earning a lot just stop working altogether in their 30s, whereas in poorer households the woman cannot afford to take the time off.
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Paekakboyz said:
@rembrandt depending on the timing and role you will likely need to find a fixed term replacement or distribute the work to other staff, without disestablishing the role. Finding people takes time, they will prob need training and while the person providing cover may have potential you are training them to ultimately be replaced. Then there are the variables about when someone takes the leave, how close to their due date etc. Mix in health, family and the rest and it's a heady mix on many fronts. All part of life etc but it's not just swap in and out.
Cheers for that.
What is the government involvement in the process?
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Good on you for being upfront about it. I agree that it should be as painless as possible (plus I'd add tax benefits or something too) to encourage companies (especially small ones) to deal with the hassle. I saw similar issues with my Mum after the employment law was changed and it became harder to hire part-timers - she just stopped doing it - and closed her shop occasionally instead.
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@rembrandt my understanding is the role gets held open for a max of 12 months unless both parties agree to something different. Your role could still get disestablished as part of a bau restructure. But you'd have the same rights as any employee. Returning to work also sees both parties negotiating, at least in my experience. Where someone might not come back fulltime etc
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Another thought on this is that all of the pay gap stuff ignores the family unit. Women actually account for a far larger percentage of spending than men, despite earning less. You'd have a very hard time convincing me that my sons friends mum's are in any way oppressed given the lavish lifestyles they are living.
As I've gotten older I've come to realise how insanely powerful a strong family unit is. There really is no need for any government assistance if you have two people working in partnership with each other to earn enough money while raising a family.
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Good to see some open discussion here.
I'm quite large on being a non believer of the gender pay gap. That doesn't mean that I physically don't believe men get paid more than woman - stats are stats; it means that I don't believe that a woman gets paid less to do the same job as a man.
Every industry sector is different, but the truth of the matter is that generally there are more possibilities available to men, primarily because men push harder for them. I can't speak for all men, and don't profess to, but it's fair to say that a higher percentage of woman value work-life balance over men. And they are prepared to make sacrifices for this.
Whoever takes maternity or paternity leave is going to naturally put themselves at a disadvantage against their peers, because they simply aren't there. People pay up for experience, promote experience, and have more opportunity to see how people with more experience cope in the edge cases of working life. If your job is a photo copier, you don't get rewarded for photocopying. You get rewarded for how you handle it when the photocopier is out of toner, the supplier is not contactable, the phones go down, the power goes off, and smoke come out the back of the thing, when you have a deadline to hit, which can't be missed.
Fixing and sorting this, may take extra time. Time, which perhaps, working parents don't have. If you have the time and commit to fixing it, as opposed to leaving to do the school run, is it fair that you are rewarded for this? Or is it unfair that you are rewarded for this, as your colleague had to leave to commit to other responsibilities?
It used to be the former, where at year end when you got promoted, your colleague would say "congratulations, well done, I don't have the time I used to anymore, and I really appreciated you fixing those issues when I had to get my children from school". But now, it's "thats not fucking fair, I'm being discriminated against because I have children, I'm going to the media, fuck you, you'll pay, you'll fucking pay for this".
You can see why BSG is unlikely to be alone in his approach.
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MajorRage said:
Every industry sector is different, but the truth of the matter is that generally there are more possibilities available to men, primarily because men push harder for them.
Men have access to a wider range of opportunities just through physical strength/endurance. Women are at such a disadvantage in the skilled trades (and the career pathways that follow) from a strictly biological perspective.
Many of those occupations contribute to the 9:1 workplace death rate that men experience - surely warranting some premium.
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@Bones said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
Seems an ok thread for this? Fuck you, you thin privileged fluffybunnies!
'Can leave a plus-sized person like myself, full of...'
chips, crisps and chocolate you fat munter
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@MiketheSnow pissed myself laughing when she shows footage of herself supposedly getting sighed at on public transport....while eating.
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@Bones said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:
@MiketheSnow pissed myself laughing when she shows footage of herself supposedly getting sighed at on public transport....while eating.
Got to keep the engine running, or should that be idling