Question for gbajiFollow

See, this is why everyone dislikes you.

No argument although (again, in my limited experience) places tend to be more generous with maternity leave than paternity. Apparently this varies not only from business to business but also state to state. My initial point is that I don't know of any new fathers who took 6-12 weeks off. Since FMLA is unpaid, it stands to reason that someone needs to be making money and that the one who stays home unpaid will typically be the mother.

Edited, Mar 9th 2011 11:44am by Jophiel

Apparently, the incredibly simple math I laid in front of you was actually too hard.

STD (short term disability) is mandated by law for any business above a certain size (this was in the document I linked if you'd bothered to read it). You can obtain STD automatically for 6 weeks of maternity leave (more if there are complications, which include having a c-section, which is very common nowadays). FMLA provides for an additional 12 weeks of leave. Let's do the math: 12 weeks, plus 6 weeks is 18 weeks. That's 4+ months right there. That's the minimum amount you can always get no matter what else is going on. If you have complications, that's an additional couple weeks of STD, pushing the total up to almost 5 months. Add in a week of sick time, and a couple weeks of vacation time, and it's not unreasonable for someone to reach a total of 6 months out.


Do you need help getting your spoon to your mouth in order to eat too? Sheesh!



Oh. And just to address another point: At the workplaces where the greatest amount of differential in pay exists they do get more vacation and sick leave and longer disability leave. Where I work, vacation time caps at 10 weeks (and most people get 4 weeks a year). Sick leave is basically as long as you have documentation from a doctor (we don't track numbers of days). But I think if you are out sick for more than a week, you need a doctors note, and if for more than a month, you have to go on disability. It's kinda ironic that the workplaces with the largest pay discrepancies according to the statistics are the ones that provide the greatest amount of benefits useful to pregnant women. But it's not because of sexual discrimination, but because women in those workplaces take more advantage of that leave, and often have more choices in terms of deciding to work part time after having a child or even quitting their job (they're more likely to be married to someone who's also pulling in a good salary and working for a company with better benefits).

Edited, Mar 9th 2011 12:15pm by gbaji

When did I say that this was an average? I said it's not uncommon for women to do this. Also, see my follow up point about which sorts of workplaces this is more common in.




And how much total time did she take off?

That's also assuming the woman in question has only one child, and doesn't reduce her hours to spend more time at home with her kid. I think all of these factors are what gbaji is talking about.

Listen, sick time, comp time, vac. time, etc are earned and paid. They don't count towards the average amount of time women don't work because they're slacking off popping out babes.

If they do count, then you also have to count the time men take off to go hunting or go to las vegas, because ya know, that's what men do while women are having babies.





Edited, Mar 9th 2011 10:25pm by Elinda

Women are 'younger' on the job because they're **** on when they have to make the family. If all goes well when a women takes two months off (assuming she does take a leave of absence versus using earned time) to have a baby, she only loses one year of merit increase (yes, one full year lost because of a two month absence). If things don't go so well, she'll just lose the job and have to go back to start. This is the problem.

Your arguments are bias, layered on stereotype and spread with sexism and bigotry. Its so ingrained in you, you cant' recognize it.

If the average women took 5 years off when she had a baby, you'd potentially have a point. But that just isn't the case, so as usual I have no clue what you are trying to prove.

Please don't curse us with such a scenario. I gladly tip my hat off to women and appreciate everything that they do.

Yes. It would be women's pay that would outstrip men, and the men would be complaining about it, and it would be the men insisting that anyone who didn't agree with them that this was horribly unfair were sexist bigots. It's biology, not bigotry that creates this difference.

Expound..

Wow! Give yourself enough of an out there? I suppose your definition of "Real College" is one which didn't produce the person with whom you disagree?

Your insecurity is touching, but I'm happy to stack my "uneducated" prospects against yours any day.