From: russ@alliant.com (Russell McFatter)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Re: gender "data-hiding" (vs. discrimination) [LONG]
Keywords: maternity benefits, discrimination, birth rate
Date: 16 Apr 92 19:29:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: alliant.1992Apr16.192943.26340
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.

In article <1032@armltd.uucp> hwatters@armltd.uucp (Helen Watters) writes:
>
>Russ,
>
>    Start living in the real world.

I do, but possibly not the same one that you've been in.  I'm of a
generation that has never seen any benefit from discrimination against
females, yet is expected to pay the price for it.  I've had to meet
higher admission standards for college because I'm male; face tougher
hiring standards, and undoubtedly will continue to see this kind of
thing for many decades.  I live in a world where men are expected to
live up to higher standards, with less reward.

>In the UK where I am posting from there is no AA, so your argument does not
>apply. Too many women I talk to in the UK about their company's employment 
>policy, say there are no women in moderately senior or very senior positions, 
>even though from where they are sitting there are eligible candidates. I
>have talked to a few american women and most believe they were the best
>qualified person for the job, but they wouldn't have got the interview, if
>AA had not been in place.  Clearly systems designed by humans are rarely 
>perfect, but the few women I have talked feel, AA has done an enormous amout
>of good.

Of course those who you talk to will always claim that they are the
"best for the job"; what else would you expect?  AA makes discrimination,
NOT equality, a fact of life.

>As to suing for dicrimination, I personally know of no one who has sued. Why
>not? It is liable to get you labelled as a troublemaker and therefore
>it will be harder to find another job. But there have been at least one
>case of a  white middle class male(WMCM), who sued a council for 
>discrimination, because they employed someone of ethnic descent, who was
>not as well qualified for the job as the WMCM and the WMCM won.

A single case makes not much of a story.  Here in the US, juries and judges
are often biased in favor of the "minority", and sexual discrimination
cases brought on by women are so common that they're not even newsworthy
anymore.

AA attempts to give preferential treatment (in hiring and promotion) to
groups that were disadvantaged in these situations in the past.  Thus
an entire generation gets "lost" in the shuffle.  Imagine, for a moment,
that you are to make a decision on promoting 5 people this year to the
level of "middle" management.  Only now do you have women with enough
experience to choose from:

	Department Managers	50 men,   0 women
	Supervisor		600 men,  400 women

AA's goal is for the upper level groups to quickly reach the same
male/female proportions as the general population.  You'd be strongly
induced to select 5 women this year, but that puts hardly a dent
in the m/f ratio for Department Managers.  So, in fact, for the next 4
years, you promote only women (20 of them).

	Division Directors	10 men,   0 women
	Department Managers     30 men,   20 women
	Supervisors	        600 men,  400 women

This year you need to promote 2 people to the rank of Director.  Again,
to correct past ills, both are women.  But now the "feeder group" of
managers has a "bad" ratio (30:18).  You promote 2 women from the rank
of Supervisor to that of Manager.

During the past 5 years, none of your male employees has been considered
for promotion; but 2 of the women you've promoted have reached the
status of Director.  And you STILL haven't balanced all of the ratios
yet, so you'll continued to need this plan for additional years.

Does this correct past ills?  Yes, as far as AA is concerned.  But it
doesn't treat the individuals concerned fairly.  It's thus considered
"fair" to sacrifice the gender equality of an entire generation to achieve
the "quick fix".

>Prior to recession many engineers were very mobile.  A women only receives
>maternity leave/benefits if she works for a company for TWO years prior to
>taking the maternity leave. But I still hear guys saying you can't employ
>a women she will only get married and leave to have children. 
>The recession has changed alot of things, so this situation will probably
>get worse.

You already said that a woman qualifies for some benefits in just 6 months
(by which point she must already know that she's pregnant!)-- and you
can consider this a limit on pre-existing conditions.  You can't honestly
believe it sensible for a woman to gain maternity benefits "right away"--
women would be inclined to seek employment just before the due date,
take 6 or more paid weeks with absolutely no work, then quit.

Some employers avoid the "waiting period" for benefits by allowing employees
to take an "advance", essentially, on paid leave time.  An employee who
quits without earning this time (retroactively) is billed for the time
they took, but didn't earn.  The problem is that the employer sometimes
never collects.

>MATERNITY LEAVE IS PRIMARILY DESIGNED FOR THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER AND BABY. 
>Got that.  Mothers who work up to the birth of the baby are more likely to
>have problems, than those who don't and more likely to have a still born
>child. OK maybe only one extra baby dies per several thousand births, but
>it will still be extremely upsetting for the mother. 

No, I don't "got that".  There are no facts to back up your premise, and
again, you fail to even mention what kind of "work" you're talking about,
or how it affects the mother or child ANY differently than other activities
the mother would be performing (cleaning the house, talking on the phone,
watching TV, reading a book) if she spent the same time at home.  If
the job is in a coal mine, at a construction site, or at a steel foundry,
I'd be inclined to believe you.  But without actual facts, you might as
well be saying that "VACATION TIME IS PRIMARILY DESIGNED FOR THE HEALTH
OF WOMEN".

I think it necessary to say that the health of the FAMILY is important
here; that's why new fathers deserve the benefit as well.  If you were
male, wouldn't you want to be at your wife's side during this period?
Don't mothers want this support as well?

>What about the father you ask? Well your ideas seems to advocate to me,
>that his feelings do not matter. Why should a REAL man get upset over
>the death of a much wanted child? I suspect most men would shed a few 
>tears over the loss. 

No, what YOU'VE said is that his feelings do not matter; he should be
kept on the job and given no time off to be with his family.

>A small baby needs round the clock attention.  The child must be fed every 
>few hours. The primary care giver must be on hand.  However much we spout 
>about equality when the child cries, of the mother and father, it is 
>usually the mother who responds first.  

I'd disagree.  Having talked with many new parents, a clear pattern
of responsibility (at different times of the day) DOES develop, but it's
not always the mother who "responds first"; it actually turns out to
be a 50/50 split.  In some cases the father takes care of the baby
through the night, because his wife is exhausted from her duties during
the day while he's at work.  He is AS CAPABLE of being the child's
"primary care giver" as the baby's mother.  What you're expressing
is a stereotype image that's gone out of fashion years ago, just as
we no longer label men as the "primary breadwinner" in every family.

I personally know several families where the wife is the "primary
breadwinner"; my own brother-in-law works at home and takes care of
the children.  

>I have talked to mothers and they say the cry of their baby brings at
>instant response. By the time the first cry is out, they are up on their 
>feet and running. Their baby's cry is something, they CAN NOT ignore.
>A father, however much he loves the child(ren), however much he cares,
>he simply does not respond as fast.

I've talked to fathers and found the same thing.  Again, families
develop a pattern that's best for them; the split appears to be about
50-50 as far as responsibility goes.  You are generalizing that your
experience represents the "normal" case, which it doesn't.

>So it is usually the mother who gives round the clock care to the child 
>at the start of that child's life.  The mother has been through a physically
>demanding experience and then she has take of a person, who requires
>lots of attention. So she is getting very little sleep. She becomes
>exhausted.

It is only when we FORCE these old stereotypes on her.  We insist that
she take care of newborn children all by herself by not giving the
father any kind of time off from work.

>Paternity leave enables the father to help the mother care for the child,
>but the father does not need to recover from the physical side of having
>a baby or have to cope in the same way  with the demands of the baby.
>There was a TV program on who suffered more stress, who worked a longer day
>A father who commuted to a professional job, or a mother taking care of
>3 children, the youngest was 2.  The mother suffered far more stress
>and worked on average 18hrs a day.

The father DOES need to be at his wife's side, and there to "offload" the
duties of child care during the mother's recovery period.  The very REASON
that the wife "suffers far more stress" is that we deny her this support,
effectively making her perform an entire job while she's not up to it.


>I also feel from your sugestion about how maternity leave should be allotted, 
>you look on maternity leave as leave. A nice little holiday for the mother.
>Which it ain't

You should have no reason to feel this way.  I've taken care of children,
and it's no holiday.  But we deny fathers a chance to bond with their
own children, and to be there during a stressful period, by not allowing
him the same benefits that mothers get.

>I don't know about the USA, but in the UK, although a women may retain her
>job, she loses all other company benefits, while she is away on Maternity
>leave. She is effectively not an employee. I dont know what happens to man
>who take study leave etc., but the feeling is that it would not be as harsh.
>In the UK a company can force a women to take her maternity leave, if
>she takes any time off at all during the last 6 weeks of pregnancy.

That isn't true here.  Usually, one is guaranteed, upon return, your
"old" job (or a comparable equivalent at the same salary) back, and you
get all of your normal benefits (except salary) even during unpaid leave.
Most companies even consider a six-month leave to be "employed" time
as far as vacations and other benefits go-- if you work for a year,
and take six months off for childbearing, you need only work another
six months to get all the privileges of someone who's worked continuously
for two years).

>******
>*Most women, though, are
>*back to normal within four (especially for the second and subsequent
>*children).
>*****
>
>Most women cannot afford the loss of earnings to stay off work any longer.
>Children are very expensive and there is so little financial support. 
>A women who returns that quickly is unlikely to be fully effective.
>It bad for the company, bad for the women and probably bad for the baby.

I get the feeling that you're not entirely familiar with typical
pregancies and childbearing.  A complication-free pregancy does not
(and should not) result in a long disablement; and many women don't
WANT to miss out on a lot of work.  I suspect that the definition of
"work" matters:  If you consider your job to be nothing more than dull
drudgery that you can't wait to get away from, you'd press for the
maximum maternity benefits possible and take every minute of time off
that you could.  Many people actually enjoy what they do and feel a
responsibility for their company's business.

Since companies (here in the USA, at least) consider the portion of
maternity leave where the woman SHOULD be off the job (for medical reasons)
to be a short- or long-term disability, as would any worker be should
they suffer some medical problem.  Maternity leave is in ADDITION to this
time.  The medical disability time is NOT the issue here!


>****
>*I don't see that (drop in birth rate) as a major problem.
>****
>
>I do. As the population ages there are fewer young people, to pay for
>the services the elderly need. The type of health care the elderly often 
>need is the expensive care of the chronically sick. Fewer young people
>to pay for the pensions of the elderly etc. In the UK there is a 
>pension of sorts for all who paid national insurance. I also believe
>that the money I pay to the geovernment now is being used for services now.
>When I retire, I don't intend to commit succide, and I would like to
>have enough money to live on. Few young people supporting lots of old people
> could mean high taxes for those in work. The best and the brightest
>leave the country, to work somewhere where taxes are lower.
>Alternative low taxes, mean  not enough money to pay for sevices the 
>elderly need, but who cares, there gonna die quicker than me. Life is for
>the young. Lets kill the elderly off quick. Sentiments I CANNOT agree with.

I'll agree that this is a problem.  But I don't expect the "nation's
young people" to pay for my old age, because I expect that they won't.
I'm responsible for doing that myself-- that's why we have insurance
plans, retirement plans, disability insurance, pensions, annuities, and
all sorts of instruments designed so that I can avoid being a burden to
my (or anyone else's) children.  If I can't afford my own upkeep, how
am I possibly supposed to afford the upkeep of yet additional human
beings?

The world's population cannot survive on the "pyramid plan" that we've
arranged for it.  Sooner or later it will all collapse; or perhaps
every available square foot on the planet will be packed with living
human bodies.  (According the the U.S. Center for Population Studies,
by the year 2015 the land allocation per person will be approximately
1 square meter, worldwide.)

Health care "rationing" for an aging population is, at this point,
inevitable.


>Ok, suppose we do decrease, the population of the UK. Perhaps the country 
>experiences a boom, where will it find the workers? Fewer employees means
>higher wages. Oh lets import people from poor countries to do the work.
>Well we only want highly skilled people, so the poorer countries, lose their
>most valuable skills to the UK. Well the West has always taken what it needs.
>It is OK, so who cares?. I try to care.

Egads.  I already told you:  There will be fewer JOBS available due to
decreased demand for goods/services.  It's a "wash".

I imagine the number of people who would like to immigrate to the U.S.,
but can't, thanks to immigration quotas.  Why the quotas and the pressure
to get in?  Because the places people want to immigrate from are, for
the most part, even more crowded than our own territory is.

>No you could not.  The people who are primarily having kids, are the
>very rich (only a few) and the very poor, lots of these.  The poor are less
>able, for a whole load of very good reasons(like it is too expensive) to
>educate their kids. So you end up with masses of poorly educated people,
>whose expectations are often better than their skills.  
>I have recently been reading up on the link between training and
>success. All my reading has CLEARLY shown that better trained people, do
>better quality work.  If a country wants commercial success in the world it
>MUST make sure it has a well educated work force. 

Wait a minute!  Your entire premise (the question on the floor at the
point) was: "Only the rich will be able to have kids".  Thus, if only
the rich DO have kids, those kids will be fewer in number, but much
better educated.

I do advocate a strong national education system, which we don't have at
this point, but cannot afford due to continuing population growth,
urban decay, and government waste. 

>List the poor countries, which are democratic. It seems to me that only the
>rich west can afford democracy. Poor countries seem to have various flavours
>of dictatorship. 

That's a factor of education, not wealth.  Even the U.S. is heading towards
the status of a "poor country", with our immense federal debt and
endless additional budget deficits; it's countries who have managed their
resources well (rather than blow all their savings on national defense)
that can best afford to educate their people, and will be in the best
position to lead us poor countries into the next century.

>*******
>*But the thing you haven't suggested:  WHO is to support these parents?
>*******
>
>Perhaps the question should be why?  Middle class couples currently have 
>little incentive to have kids. As a result the middle class is dying out.
>Most middle income couples are having either no children or only one.
>The middle class are usually the ones who supply, your next generation of
>educated workers. The rich can survive very nicely. Many of the systems in
>place discourage the poor from trying, never mind succeeding.  I read 
>somewhere, supprisingly small amounts of say tax relief would ease this
>problem.

Not likely.  The problem we have is that there's no place for the tax
relief to come from.  We could take every dollar from every rich
person in the country and still not come close to covering the budget
deficit; there's just not enough rich people.  We just don't have the
money to grant every person who wants children full support; especially
since we end up paying for not only those children, but inevitably
their children, and theirs, and so on.  The "pie" of education funding
gets sliced thinner and thinner.

With children so expensive, and with the economy essentially bankrupt,
one would think it makes sense to budget children-- to have them as
we can afford them, instead of "on credit" as we have been doing.

>But the pervading attitude seems to be, if you want children you support
>them. So middle income couples don't have children and there are fewer 
>educated workers and the country goes down hill.

There'd be even fewer (if any) poor people having children, of
course.  The PERCENTAGE of educated workers increases, as does the
percentage of educated voters, consumers, and such, and the country
goes uphill, without the massive burdens we now have.

--- Russ McFatter [russ@alliant.COM]
    std. disclaimers apply.