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Comment by kartan | Hacker News Reader

I see just two comments right now and I see a lot of cynism.

Things are better today than in the past thanks to people fighting for their and others rights. And the job is not finished.

Democracy is not something that happens once each four years. It's important to vote, but as important is to express your dissatisfaction with the wrongdoings of the system.

> Ms Born, who joined a newsroom staffed entirely by men in 1986, is quietly optimistic. "We've achieved some good things since 1991," she points out. "We have maternity leave now."

Parental leave seams such a natural right to have that it's strange that there exists any opposition to it. Mothers and fathers benefit from it. Fighting for women's rights is also figthing for a more just and balance society for everyone.

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> Parental leave seams such a natural right to have that it's strange that there exists any opposition to it. Mothers and fathers benefit from it. Fighting for women's rights is also figthing for a more just and balance society for everyone.

Yet our government (I'm swiss) stubbornly refuses to introduce a paternity leave. This will hopefully change in the coming years because they will be forced to through an initiative (one collected enough signatures already and a vote will follow).

> Parental leave seams such a natural right to have that it's strange that there exists any opposition to it.

There's opposition to it for a number of reasons:

1. Employers are people, and peoples first reactions to anything is almost universally selfish: "how does this negatively affect me? And why should I suffer financially for someone else's gain?"

2. Most policy makers are still men, and policy makers only decide policy based on their own experiences. If they haven't suffered from lack of maternity leave, they won't prioritize it as an issue.

Protest is a means of shaking the sleeping masses and getting your message into the public consciousness. That's how you make change happen when nobody in power is motivated to change. Once you build enough momentum, they have to change.

During the maternity leave it is not the employer that is paying the salary of the mother (at least in Switzerland, and I assume it is the same in most if not all countries with a mandatory maternity leave), but the state. So the employer isn't paying someone to do nothing.

He also has enough time to plan the replacement since the leave can be announce 6 months or so in advance.

Maternity leave is covered by deductions from salary for everybody. It's a part of the Income Compensation Insurance, the rate of IC is 0.225% of the salary. It is deducted from the agreed-upon salary and additionally the employer pays an additional 0.225%, so in the total 0.45% is deducted.

https://www.bsv.admin.ch/bsv/en/home/social-insurance/eo-msv...

https://www.ahv-iv.ch/en/Leaflets-forms/Leaflets/Contributio...

There are other mandatory insurance deductions. Let's say the employer and the employee agree upon a wage of CHF 7500 a month, then first the employer deducts premiums of 5.125% or CHF 384 and also adds CHF 384 on his own and sends the money to the compensation office where the employer is located.

From my own experience as an employer I know that the compensation offices are very strict and know how levy the monies even from small mom-and-pop shops with employees. They are also helpful, as an employer you can call them or visit them and do what is neccessary. It's an efficient and tightly organized system.

> Fighting for women's rights is also figthing for a more just and balance society for everyone.

What are “women’s rights”? Is parental leave for men (or non-female genders or whatever is the correct way nowadays to refer to people who are not women) one of “women’s rights”?

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