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Comment by goodcanadian | Hacker News Reader

Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on!

As a father, it bothers me to see those considerations described as "women-friendly." Why is it assumed that my wife is the one who has to leave early to pick our daughter up from school? The most "woman friendly" policy would also involve changing the expectations on men to allow women's partners to take on more of the care giving role (for example). I strongly agree with seaknoll in characterizing them as "human friendly" policies.

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They're not "women-friendly" because they just cover women. The most women-friendly policy in the world is one that provides plenty of these opportunities to both sexes in equal, or almost equal measure.

If HR doesn't have to worry that I'm a bigger liability because of my gender (after all, the man sitting next to me also gets flex time and leeway to pick up his kids) that's a bonus for me.

The worst case is when there are no opportunities, or when they're so lopsided (14 weeks paid parental leave for women, 2 weeks for men) that you become a liability.

"Women-friendly policies" don't just cover things like maternity leave. Ultimately they do boil down to "human-friendly policies." How: they accommodate women more and thus balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated. At least that's the idea.

(I was going to quote seaknoll's comment until I realised that you already mentioned it!)

It is possible that we are on the same page, but from your choice of language, I feel you are still subtly missing my point. You talk about "accommodating women more" in order to "balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated." My point is that we also need to accommodate men more to balance that culture. Again, just for example, if I want to be an equal partner in raising my child (and I like to think I am), I need the same sort of considerations that a woman in my position does. In other words, it is not just about breaking women out of their traditional roles; we need to break men out of their traditional roles as well. I suppose that you can call these ideas "women friendly," but to me, that is putting the focus unfairly on women, when it should really be about accommodating both genders to help them meet in the middle, so to speak.

Considering that US federal law seems to be gender agnostic, from skimming Wikipedia, I'm not so sure about this criticism. At least there seems to be a ground work for caring for parents and not only mothers.

While I agree with your sentiment (as a father with ~18 month parental leave behind me) It would be nice to know if there are common policies that are problematic in your view.

You seem to misunderstand. I don't object to the policies; I am strongly in favour of them. After all, I benefit from them as well. I object to it being characterized as primarily a women's issue. That does a disservice to both sexes 1) by implying that women's gender is the problem when it is not, and 2) by failing to recognize that in order to live a balanced life, men need exactly the same policies. In other words, it is not a "women's issue," it is a "human issue."

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