My right to nine years’ paternity leave

I want three years’ paternity leave for each of my children — backdated

22 August 2007

The new Tory proposals are bang on the money

Take one simple example — the issue of maternity and paternity leave. What the Left would call ‘progressive’ legislation and a general softening of misogynist attitudes has seen the proportion of women working in Britain rise from somewhere around 30 per cent in the early 1970s to nearly 70 per cent today. This, we might all agree, is a good thing. However, the Equal Opportunities Commission and other campaigning bodies insist that women’s progress in the workplace is still slower than that of men and that hundreds of thousands of women should be occupying jobs which currently men hold, were there a truly level playing field. The EOC and others blame institutionalised sexism — and they are right, but they’ve got it the wrong way around. It is not, largely, misogynist attitudes in the workplace which are to blame, but the accidental effects of the very legislation which the EOC and others demanded must be introduced. If you are a married couple, both working, and you decide to have a baby, then the question of who stays at home to look after the baby is very easy to answer. Dad will be granted by his firm, if he’s lucky, two weeks of paid leave. Mum will get nine months, minimum — and these days will most likely return to work after this period in a part-time role, her managers instructed to treat her demands as to where and when she works (no nights, please) with complete understanding and indulgence. As a result, hundreds of thousands of married women miss out on a year of possible promotion; for the dads, meanwhile, there was no choice at all. Work — and forget the kids.