Deirdre Saoirse wrote:
>
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, Caitlyn Martin wrote:
>
> > Let me give an example. About a year and a half ago, when I was with
> > Interpath, there was a programmer who I was pretty friendly with. He
> > is intelligent, talented, and certainly treated the women there with
> > respect. I was shocked when he argued that women should receive lower
> > pay than men for the same job. His attitude was that we were more
> > likely to go off and have babies, while men are much more focused on
> > their careers and likely to stay on the job, and therefore employers
> > should invest more in men.
>
> Playing Devil's Advocate:
>
> Women ARE several times more likely to quit jobs than men for a variety of
> reasons, some of which have to do with childrearing and some which do not.
> Given that the costs of replacing someone in a position are high and the
> expected tenure is lower, what do you propose a fair non-sexist way would
> be to offset these financial risks to the company?
>
One way is to encourage men to take as much part and responsibility in
childrearing as women. Here in Scandinavia (and most other european
countries, I think) women get from 6 to 12 months (in some countries
even more) in leave on pay after child-birth. If they are working for a
private company the company is bound to take care of that. That, of
course, can mean a considerable cost for the company budget, and doesn't
encourage them to hire more women. The solution offered is to offer
males the same, a leave on pay just after childbirth. At the moment this
is only done half-heartedly. One perhaps gets a choice of a few weeks or
the option of taking a part of the spouses' leave (which means she will
get less). But it's getting better and I hope that in a few years we'll
see men and women getting the same choices in these matters.
And more men taking advantage of this;-)
regards,
Guğmundur
P.S. I really should introduce myself: My name is Guğmundur Erlingsson,
of icelandic nationality but living at the moment in Madrid, Spain,
taking care of my son while my spouse is in university. I'm not working
at the moment, except for an odd job here and there, but I studied
linguistics in University although I don't really want to call myself a
linguist. Have been using linux since 1996 and am a part of the
icelandic translation team translating linux (well, the interface part
of it) into icelandic. Oh, and if you couldn't tell: I'm a male of the
species.
> --
> _Deirdre * http://www.linuxcabal.net * http://www.deirdre.net
> "Mars has been a tough target" -- Peter G. Neumann, Risks Digest Moderator
> "That's because the Martians keep shooting things down." -- Harlan Rosenthal
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, retorting in Risks Digest 20.60
>
> ************
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
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