The past couple of decades have seen the military turn into a giant single-mother-child-care center. Female sailors already have a reputation: don't want to go on a long deployment? Get pregnant.

Pretty ridiculous. I am actually all for women in the military, as long as (1) they are treated exactly the same as the men, (2) job requirements are based on the job and (3) forward deployments are segregated.

The first is obvious: discrimination by the government is (and should be) illegal. It's past time to end it.

The second means that there won't be any women in the infantry, because they don't have the physical strength, but there is every reason to suppose they can be pilots. Support positions will be a mix: women won't be reloading missiles, but they might be driving tanks.

The third is maybe controversial, but you've got to keep sexual drives from interfering in combat. Put a few women in a deployed combat company, and you will seriously distract most of the men. Biology trumps political correctness.

Pregnancy is a medium deal. The first three months of parenting, assuming you're going to do it, are a big deal. The military saw that highly trained women were dropping out. Not asking for reduced workload or special treatment, you insufferable, bitter assholes, but dropping out. That means they were not asking to be accommodated, but were admitting they couldn't do both things. The military unit in question sees fit to address this with more paid leave for people who have just completed pregnancy, given birth and will presumably be primary caregiver to a baby. This is so they can hope to get their valuable workers back at the end of four months. So, what do single, child free workers get? Normal workforce protections, like workers comp, disability benefit, ect. What do you want them to get? My former manager took two 6 week leaves back to back, one for a surgery and on his way back after that leave, he had a car wreck and needed another. We did the extra work, and that's the way the cookie freaking crumbles.

When I was in the army, you got thirty days of maternity leave.

This was problematic because the day care centers wouldn't take a baby until they were at least six weeks old.

I am in favor of any business or government agency tailoring their policies to provide benefits that they think will keep their people.

I am not in favor of government mandating these same policies especially onto the private sector.

If you spend your work life constantly keeping score against your co workers as far as time off, how hard you work, vs how hard they work, who sucks up to the boss, etc, you are going to end up bitter and unhappy.

Life is unfair, get over it.

I quit a job because the work rules became so inflexible and convoluted, I was literally going to use up all my leave taking my mother to the doctor.

Never mind that men the (female) boss liked could take leave any time they wanted and it didn't even go on their time card...

@ Allison - you are conflating different things.

1) Having a child is a choice, not an accident. I'll suck it up and do the extra work to cover for a co-worker who's unable to work due to circumstances beyond his/her control. Accidents happen. But it comes a little hard to have to cover for a co-worker who's perfectly-able to work, but who's not there - by their own choice.

2) You're mixing the military and private employers - they are different things. A_random_guy has already touched on the well-documented issue of female service members who avoid unpleasant deployments or other duty by becoming pregnant. Again, you lose a worker who is perfectly-able to work, but is made unavailable - by their own choice. This is not an issue at Google.

3) While you frame this as in issue of workers 'dropping out' and not of 'asking for reduced workload or special treatment' - the latter is, effectively, what happens in the military, since pregnant service members are excluded from large areas of service - which also happen to be the most-demanding and -unpleasant areas of service. So they are 'asking for reduced workload or special treatment'. And getting it. Again, as a result of their choices.

4) It's been my experience, in 30+ years or working in US industry, that the majority of female workers with children do expect, and get, preferred treatment when it comes to the needs of their children, and that when the cr*p hits the fan, the extra load is often carried by their male and childless co-workers. Again, having children is their choice. I doubt that the military is so very much different.

llater,

llamas

What does the single person childless person get?

Generally speaking, more work, unless the company hires a temp to take up the slack.

Otherwise, the slack ain't going to take itself up.

Further: I need to dig up the study again, but I've seen some data that says that extended maternity leave doesn't help much with retention. Most women who get extended maternity leave either don't return to work when the leave runs out, or they quit within a year of returning. Further, most of them who do return to work request part-time or reduced hours.

The military, being a government organization, can implement whatever policy it wants. (Whether that policy is a good idea is another matter.) However, when the government demands that private entities do it, what is happening is that a private entity is being forced to bear the cost of a public benefit (assuming you regard having children as a public good in general). That constitutes a taking, of which the government should be required to provide equitable compensation.

And it should not be lost that this is a benefit available solely to females. Does fatherhood matter at all? Shouldn't a father be able to take some time off for child raising? No, a father can't do nursing. But he can do lots of stuff to help the mother while she nurses. And, fathers have more influence over children, especially girls, as they get older. Should not a father be able to get time off to, say, go to an event with his child? The policy as written excludes fathers entirely.

Further: if we've reached the point where we have to pay people to have children, we're screwed.

Further: if we've reached the point where we have to pay people to have children, we're screwed.
__________________________________

Define "screwed."

Plenty of countries do just that, via taxes, because of their falling birthrates. I doubt it works that well, though - aside from those couples who WANTED to have children but couldn't afford them beforehand.

I've been working in business for 20 years and while I have been asked to take up the slack for employees on leave, maternity or otherwise at one place. It's essentially government work. Everyone else hired temps. Before taking maternity leave, I trained mine. I have literally never been asked to do someone else's dedicated work while they pick up kids. Not once. That one is exactly the same issue as common screaming babies in restaurants. It's a sexist, anti-kid straw man. When I leave work early or take a sick day, for any reason, you know who does my work? Me, a-holes. It waits. If it's busy, it piles up. Anecdotes aren't widely applicable, but the argument could easily be made that my coworkers lifestyle choices led to his first leave and his accident, not that I'm making it myself, mind you. But if I gave the details, this is the crowd that would make the argument. But without the details, a leave taken by a man is assumed to be much more sympathetic than a maternity leave. And finally, according to the tired discussion, women often don't return from leave and ask for unforgivable levels of accommodation when they stay. What would you folks have them do, in order to meet your approval? Besides have elective hysterectomies at the onset of puberty?

"2) You're mixing the military and private employers - they are different things. A_random_guy has already touched on the well-documented issue of female service members who avoid unpleasant deployments or other duty by becoming pregnant. Again, you lose a worker who is perfectly-able to work, but is made unavailable - by their own choice. This is not an issue at Google."

If you take more than a cursory look at history, you will find men pulling all sorts of shenanigans to get out of, deployments, combat duty, and the draft throughout history.

You should do some reading up on the number of people who have claimed they were gay, faked mental illness, deliberately broke their leg, high tailed it for Canada, or shot themselves in the foot to get out of dangerous or tedious military duties.

Most of them were men....

I'm convinced we should extrapolate national policy from Allisons anecdote. What the worst that could happen?

Cousin Dave wrote:

'Most women who get extended maternity leave either don't return to work when the leave runs out, or they quit within a year of returning."

This has been my experience also. As I have written here before, every female engineer I have ever worked with, bar one, has taken some variation of this path. By a strange and wonderful coincidence, a female engineer that I worked with at one company in the 1990's, who stopped working about a year after the birth of her daughter, now works with me at an entirely different company, after almost a 20-year break. Her daughter is in college now, she took classes to catch up her skills, and she's back in the workforce. Good for her - she's a fine engineer and a fine person and will do well. But she's still 15-20 years behind where she should be at her age. And our previous employer still had to find, hire and train a replacement for her when she left.

@ Allison, who wrote

'And finally, according to the tired discussion, women often don't return from leave and ask for unforgivable levels of accommodation when they stay. What would you folks have them do, in order to meet your approval? Besides have elective hysterectomies at the onset of puberty?'

Women can do, whatever they like. It's not for me or anyone else to question anyone's life choices. It's neither a question of 'forgiveness' or 'approval'. I just think that employers or co-workers should not be asked, expected, or required to carry the costs and burdens of their personal life choices.

If I'm a man, and I look my boss in the eye and say 'I'm taking 4 months off, starting whenever I like, to do whatever I want to do. I may come back, or I may not, or I may up and quit 3 weeks after I return' - you have to accept that this is going to have a negative effect on his business, and my career. If I were him, I would fire me now and save myself the future uncertainty - I need to be able to plan. But if I'm a woman, my employer has to accept this. Double-standard much?

I don't doubt that you make up the work when you take a day off, as we all have to do. But the issues with women with children usually go far beyond a day off here or there. Women with children, as a general rule, have less availability (how much they can work), less flexibility (when and where they can work) and less predictability (who knows if they'll be there at all?), and these issues last for months, years, and sometimes decades. The accumulated losses have to be made up somehow, and the only places they can be made up are out of the employer's pocket, or the co-workers effort.

llater,

llamas

You should do some reading up on the number of people who have claimed they were gay, faked mental illness, deliberately broke their leg, high tailed it for Canada, or shot themselves in the foot to get out of dangerous or tedious military duties.

Most of them were men....

Most of them were being drafted - forced into slavery to the state to fight an unnecessary war.

A proposition women have never been subjected to

My daughter-in-law got five months of maternity leave recently and my son got, I think, three weeks. When said son was born I got and went to a new job (on my feet all day) three days after he was born. It's a different world than 30 years ago. I admit, I like the paternity leave that son's company offers. It helps adjust to the interrupted sleep at night.

@Isab, who wrote:

'You should do some reading up on the number of people who have claimed they were gay, faked mental illness, deliberately broke their leg, high tailed it for Canada, or shot themselves in the foot to get out of dangerous or tedious military duties.

Most of them were men....'

Indeed.

But most of them men who did these things were doing them to avoid military duty altogether. They were also committing crimes, for the most part, and if found out, could expect a stint in the brig, followed by a dishonorable discharge and the loss of all benefits.

Women who get pregnant to avoid unpleasant duty, by contrast, expect to stay in the military, keep all their rights and benefits, and above all, not have their choices questioned or suffer any negative consequences whatsoever.

One of these things, is not like the other. A male sailor who doesn't want to head out on the USS Enterprise for a 9-month deployment at sea, or a male Marine who doesn't want to go back to the sandbox, has very few options other than to refuse duty and go to the brig, do not pass go, do not collect $200. A female sailor or Marine simply has to hold up a white stick and they are immediately off the hook, no consequences. Male Marine doesn't like the sergeant, or the duty is unpleasant? Too bad. Female Marine doesn't like the sergeant, or the duty is unpleasant? Automatic reassignment. See the difference?

llater,

llamas

If I'm a man, and I look my boss in the eye and say 'I'm taking 4 months off, starting whenever I like, to do whatever I want to do. I may come back, or I may not, or I may up and quit 3 weeks after I return' - you have to accept that this is going to have a negative effect on his business, and my career. If I were him, I would fire me now and save myself the future uncertainty - I need to be able to plan. But if I'm a woman, my employer has to accept this. Double-standard much?

That's a false comparison, full of bitterness and personal perceptions. It's a straw man. Point by point:
1. Maternity leave is 6 weeks, unpaid. 8 if cesarean. If the company does not hire a temp, it is on them, not the person taking leave. Again, the leave per fed requirements is UNPAID.
2. Starting whenever I like: with understanding the limit is 6 weeks, most women will start with labor. They're not doing this for free time.
3. Do whatever I want: no, for childbirth and its aftermath. Hence the name: maternity leave.

So you're on a four year enlistment in the Navy (48 months).

Two months for Basic Training, depending on the current program (it varies).

Six months for technical school, give or take (it varies).

Thirty days paid leave each year.

So out of a four year commitment, you're at your duty station for three years (36 months).

Now cut that in half if you get pregnant (18 months maternity leave).

A four year commitment, if you're preggers, is actually 18 months of work, 18 months of pregnancy leave, 4 months of paid leave, and 8 months of basic and job training.

Women with children, as a general rule, have less availability (how much they can work), less flexibility (when and where they can work) and less predictability (who knows if they'll be there at all?), and these issues last for months, years, and sometimes decades. The accumulated losses have to be made up somehow, and the only places they can be made up are out of the employer's pocket, or the co-workers effort.

As a general rule they appear to be made up in the pay gap, whereupon women tend to select more flexible, lower paying jobs.

And I hate to interrupt a good pity party with the military guys here, but the policy we're discussing is being voluntarily instituted to retain what the unit sees as valuable employees.

The Histrionics of Allison: A Selection of Quotes

"you insufferable, bitter assholes"

"that's the way the cookie freaking crumbles."

"sexist, anti-kid straw man"

"according to the tired discussion"

"What would you folks have them do, in order to meet your approval? Besides have elective hysterectomies at the onset of puberty? "

"a false comparison, full of bitterness and personal perceptions"

"I hate to interrupt a good pity party"

Fascinating and quotable! Will there be more of the same if she doesn't get her coffee? Stay tuned!

I am on leave after returning from deployment. I am a career member of one of the Armed Services.
I did not recieve an award for deployment. As long as the current conflict has been under way, an award for deployment has been standard unless you received disciplinary action. Right? Wrong? Good policy? Bad Policy? Another conversation.
Did not receive an award for this deployment. No one on the team did. The reason? "You just did your jobs. you don't get awards for just doing your jobs. You have to do something over and above to recieve an award."
Ok. I can accept that. That is how it should be, and how it always should have been. The degradation of standards for awards has been a sore spot for a lot of people, including me.
Now someone explain why the female team member, evacuated early for pregnancy (and not as far along as the deployment had lasted, which absent any mid tour leave, is as convincing a piece of evidence as one could require for violation of General Order Number One) got not one, but TWO significant awards for deployment? As one of the members on her team, I can tell you she did her job and contributed as much as any of us, but no more.

Most of them were men....

Most of them were being drafted - forced into slavery to the state to fight an unnecessary war.

A proposition women have never been subjected to

Posted by: lujlp at July 30, 2015 9:05 AM

Most of the incidents I personally know of, occurred during World War II.

In the town I lived in, everyone knew who the World War II draft dodgers, and cowards were.

They were treated politely but with thinly veiled contempt by the veterans.

World War II also saw many women Service members, (volunteers) and civilians killed in action. In fact, in certain geographical locations, not being in the military was almost worse for your survival chances than being in it.

Glad you think that WWII was an unnecessary war, and that people were justified in avoiding military service or dangerous assignments, so some other poor joe could die in their place.

@gog, Glad my words made an impression! Also notice the lack of rebuttal!
@Wolf Man, I see your point. But I can't help but assume that the Dad got his award, too. Let me know if that wasn't the case.

Shit, she was the only one to get an award. And I lack reading comprehension. I can't explain that one, unless she did something outstanding beforehand, which you say she did not.

Look, I don't have kids, never wanted them, but birthing and raising them is kind of necessary for the propagation of the species. I'm not sure why people get so bent out of shape about society trying to find ways to accomodate it. (Some policies will be better than others, but the attitude that jobs should provide no flexibility to support child-raising is bizarre to me.)

"Glad my words made an impression! Also notice the lack of rebuttal!"

You want a rebuttal? Okay, here it is: your personal experience does not negate the personal experiences of the people you're trashing.

Amy frequently refers to a classic book, "A Guide To Rational Living", by Ellis and Harper. At the risk of stepping on her toes, I'd like to recommend it to you as well.

It may help you avoid becoming "that person" on discussion blogs - the one nobody bothers to engage because they fling poo like they're a lesser primate trapped in a poorly-maintained zoo.

I could turn that comment right back at you. Ok, you've been less emotional. But This has been a discussion of a voluntary policy that's devolved into attacking women for taking maternity leave. Personal experience and perceptions are the whole basis of the conversation. Yours are not more relevant than mine.

@ Allison, who wrote:

'That's a false comparison, full of bitterness and personal perceptions. It's a straw man. Point by point:
1. Maternity leave is 6 weeks, unpaid. 8 if cesarean. If the company does not hire a temp, it is on them, not the person taking leave. Again, the leave per fed requirements is UNPAID.
2. Starting whenever I like: with understanding the limit is 6 weeks, most women will start with labor. They're not doing this for free time.
3. Do whatever I want: no, for childbirth and its aftermath. Hence the name: maternity leave.

Point by point:

1) You correctly state the Federal maternity-leave requirement. In many places, however, the requirement is much longer, and paid, and indeed, this discussion centers round a proposed policy of 4 months, paid. This is why I used that number - because that is what we are talking about.

2) Starting whenever I like - women get to decide when they get pregnant (= 'whenever I like'). It's unlawful to ask a female employee whether she is pregnant, so she gets to decide when the employer will be told of her upcoming absence.

3) Do whatever I want to do - women decide whether to get pregnant (= 'whatever I want to do') It's similarly unlawful to ask a female employee about whether she intends to become pregnant or not, so again, she gets to decide whether the employer is going to be made to bear the cost.

Tell me in what way the comparisons are false, or how what I wrote is a 'straw man'.

llater,

llamas

Not at all surprised you'd assume that Allison. I get the impression you would encounter significant cognitive dissonance without assumptions. But if that were the case, I wouldn't be offering this anecdote. I would have asked "why did both he and she recieve awards." Because that would be "intellectual honesty." You filling in your "assumption" based upon information you could only "assume" I left out (see what I did there?) says more about you and your own approach to intellectual discourse than it does to answer the question. Particularly since I pointed out, in plain language, that no one else on the team received an award.

Right, again , I didn't catch that part on the first read. I saw the part about everyone getting one, missed that everyone didn't get one this time, posted as much.

"You should do some reading up on the number of people who have claimed they were gay, faked mental illness, deliberately broke their leg, high tailed it for Canada, or shot themselves in the foot to get out of dangerous or tedious military duties."

Don't miss that this is a classic "two wrongs" fallacy to defend what women do.

Not working.

I have no use for a pregnant soldier or sailor. This isn't about you, cupcake, it's about the unit.

You might miss this, but the PURPOSE of a military unit is to kill the enemy. Support positions often forget this and invent fantasies about the reason for their existence. Yes, you may be a part of frying a million people alive under a mushroom cloud if you didn't vote for the right series of leaders during your lifetime.

Nobody at ISIS - the scare of the day - cares about your time off.

"but the PURPOSE of a military unit is to kill the enemy"

The purpose of the military is not to *kill* the enemy. It is to control and occupy territory, and achieve through force, what was not achievable through diplomatic means.

In that mission, about twenty five percent of the military actually directly fights. (Probably less)

The rest of the military supports those fighters logistically.

And that logistical support can be handled, in most cases by almost anyone male or female, who is not actually in labor, or carrying a baby in their arms.

The fact that the military has a policy of sending barely pregnant women home from deployment is a poor choice on their part, not something that has to be done to preserve the *mission*

It is all part of the same zero risk mentality that disarms soldiers and officers on military installations, and at recruiting stations.

Does anyone even care about the innocent children caught in the middle of this angry debate? They need their parents when they are tiny infants and young babes and it's no fault of theirs if their parents made stupid choices based on financial irresponsibility.

Why is everyone so hyper-critical of women who have babies (deliberately or not) attempting to hold on to their income if at all possible? Raising children is not cheap, jobs are no longer easy to obtain, not all pregnancies are intentional, and not everyone believes in abortion as a form of birth control. (I'm not saying it should be "illegal", but that it is a personal choice based on individual spiritual conviction, and that we should all be tolerant of eachothers' unique principles, generally speaking.)

What's with all the resentment? Are you all sterile or abstinent? Where is the heart of the human race nowadays? What has gone wrong with our priorities?

Quite frankly, I am getting a little disillusioned with all the "women bashing" in this blog, which has become the predominant theme in recent weeks. I may decide to turn my attention elsewhere in the future (though I've always enjoyed reading it before), if this ongoing drivel continues, as it is beginning to feel kind of out of balance and negative. Can anything else be introduced as subject matter to discuss, perchance?

Life is a gift, and no one should be made to feel guilty for fully participating, regardless of their gender, or of temporarily "inconveniencing" their co-workers to build their families in a manner in which they feel is important to them.

Our time on Earth is fleeting, and we are wise to remember that in our decisions, regardless of other peoples' petty criticism and whiny complaints about being needed for a few extra hours on the job from time to time. The money is going into your pocket, so what's the big deal? Geez!

I may decide to turn my attention elsewhere in the future (though I've always enjoyed reading it before), if this ongoing drivel continues, . . .

Can anything else be introduced as subject matter to discuss, perchance?

Hows about the prevalence of whinny bitches on the internet threatening to take their toys and go home if everyone else doesnt do as they say?

How about the notion you voiced where no one can ever be held to any standard of responsibility for fear their children might suffer.

Ever notice jack holes like you never trot it out for men?

Well, Isab is right here with an excellent example of the fantasy I mentioned. That's what rationalization looks like.

Dear heart, my ballistic missile sub was not built to do anything but fry entire nations.

But I appreciate the powdered sugar.

IAMANEAGLE:

The military is NOT a "job".
You don't get to quit, and you swear to do your DUTY - a term wholly alien to persons like yourself.

If the success of the mission means YOU DIE, guess what?

I doubt if I can explain just how different service is to someone so far off base…

"Does anyone even care about the innocent children caught in the middle of this angry debate?"

Did you really just invoke the "Think about the children" meme? FUCK, YOU ARE COMPLETELY CLUELESS.

Allison, you arrogant bitch. How dare you assume that because you haven't experienced something personally, then it must not exist. Since you've told your little story, let me tell you mine. Back in the '80s, the small (7 people) software group I worked for had someone go on maternity leave. She was having a difficult pregnancy and her doctor put her on bed rest at seven months. Okay. Myself and another co-worker were the two other people who were somewhat familiar with the work she was doing, so we picked up the slack. She didn't help much; we had to spend a lot of time wading through her files and such so we could figure out what she had been working on and where she was with things. We put in a lot of unpaid overtime doing that. Well, okay; she had not been feeling well and her doctor had made the decision rather abruptly. We understood.

So she has the baby. A month later, she brings the newborn in for everyone to see, and so they can give her the shower that she didn't get before she was put on bed rest. She asks how thnigs are going, and me and my co-worker explain to her what we are doing. She answers a couple of questions for us, and we wish her well as she leaves. She says she will be returning to work in a few more weeks.

Weeks turn into months. We're overloaded with work. We try calling her to ask questions and try to get some advice on things she was doing, but she does not return phone calls. We start asking about hiring another person, and are told that we can't because the law requires that her position be held open. We try getting a temp, but it takes too long to get them up to speed; we spend more time trying to help the temp then it would have taken for us to do the work ourselves. We let the temp go. Months pass. We've gotten a few other co-workes to take some of the work myself and the one co-worker were doing, to spread the load around. It's a strain on everyone.

A year later, our long-on-leave co-worker finally comes back to work. She's pregnant again. She works for a week (during which she gets very little done), and goes on leave again. Our department head (two levels up from my supervisor) goes to the executives and raises cain. They put pressure on the co-worker who is on leave, and after a few weeks she agrees to turn in her notice. Finally, after 16 months, we can fill her position.

.

Dear heart, my ballistic missile sub was not built to do anything but fry entire nations.

But I appreciate the powdered sugar.

Posted by: Radwaste at July 30, 2015 8:24 PM

And a ballistic missile submarine has never been used in that capacity.

Not a single ballistic nuclear missile has ever been fired at a military target or civilian city.

They have only been deployed as deterrence,

(I was in a nuclear missile unit in the military, and know quite about their capabilities, and operations.)

But as others have noticed before me, Radwaste, this has never been enough to dissuade you of your straw man fantasies.

@Cousin Dave, 12 weeks of that 16 months was actually required by law, and they could have hired the temp when she left. Bad management is the problem, here.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/

I'm with iamaneagle. This is like reading an MRA blog. There are other places to find conservative commentary.

Starting to agree with Allison and iamaneagle. We get it, you all hate women. I suspect that, in person, the feeling is mutual.

ahw, Allison, iamaneagle- We get it, you don't care if you inconvenience others. You can't comprehend personal responsibility. You don't understand what it is like to be saddled with other peoples problems. The contempt pointed in your general direction comes from people having to deal with bullshit they didn't sign up for.

Interesting, Abersouth, that the only, limited comment I've contributed to this thread causes you to draw any conclusion other than what I've stated: you guys hate women, or at a minimum, generally hold them in contempt. Unless you recall my other comments on other items, you don't even know whether I'm male or female, employed or not, a parent or not, and you have no idea what my opinion is on women in the military.

ahw, I don't care if you are male or female, employed, a parent, gay, or what your opinion is of women in the military. Those things are immaterial. If you align yourself with the crippled reasoning used by Allison and iamaneagle, I have contempt for you. It picks peoples pockets and plunders their time.

You're like a bunch of fat old men, sitting around in a circle bitching about women.

@ Allison, who wrote:

'@Cousin Dave, 12 weeks of that 16 months was actually required by law, and they could have hired the temp when she left. Bad management is the problem, here.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/

Bad management - excuse me? If we take Cousin Dave's story as-written, the management had no choice whatever - they were stuck holding open the position of his absent co-worker until she decided to quit. For 16 months.

It's not 'bad management' - it's 'bad regulation'.

"Getting a temp" may work when you're staffing cash registers or the typing pool, but for any sort of skilled, professional or or technical work, this is a pure straw person because

a) you can't simply hire 'temps' to fill many positions - almost-anyone you hire may take months or years to get up to speed. The idea that the world is awash in amazingly-skilled people just looking to work for a few weeks or months, that you can hire at a moment's notice, is just delusional. People like that are in fantastic demand.

b) anyone who does have the skills to drop into a position like this as a 'temp' and be productive on day 1, wouldn't take that position, knowing that it evaporates on the day that the woman decides she's coming back to work. Why would they? If you're a top-flight engineer, or lawyer, or surgeon, why would you derail your career arc by taking a temporary position of indeterminate length, that's entirely-dependent on the whims of the employee whose work you are doing, but whose job you are prohibited by Federal law from getting?

What really happens - what almost-always happens, as Cousin Dave describes - is that the co-workers of the woman who has decided to stop working for a while end up shouldering the added load. And continue to do so if/when she comes back to work, because she is always less-productive when she returns.

You might as well suggest that an employer fill the void in his workforce (which, again has been created entirely at the whim of his employee) by hiring a couple of unicorns to take her place.

Again, I don't question anyone's life choices - do, whatever you want to do. I just don't see where an employer should be required by law to carry the costs of an employee's life choices. The reason for the employee's absence is immaterial to the employer - pregnancy, big-game hunting, six months in a Tibetan llamaserie. Why should an employer have to treat one individual's life choice any differently than any other?

What means 'MRA blog'?

llater,

llamas

fat wise old men maybe. You come across as whiny entitled twits.

or at a minimum, generally hold them in contempt

Point of fact, I hold EVERYONE in contempt until I see a sign they dont deserve it

You're like a bunch of fat old men, sitting around in a circle bitching about women.

More like a bunch of people bitching about morons, who in this instance happen to be women.

Criticism != hate

"But as others have noticed before me, Radwaste, this has never been enough to dissuade you of your straw man fantasies."

Wow, what a clueless...

The PISTOL your police officer carries is intended for self-defense and the defense of others. When it is needed, nothing else will do, and WHEN, not IF, the situation warrants, a) it will be used, and b) nothing else will do.

The Glock is NOT built to "deter" anyone. It is built to shoot things, specifically people.

"Deterrence" of all sizes is built on the ability to project the determination to USE a deadly asset.

That's why I'm not posing a "straw man", and why you are simply attempting to be gentle in some way.

By the way - your offering that "others have noticed" is the fallacy, "appeal to popularity", and the idea that the SSBN has not been used, to support your mistake about its job is actually fallacious - "appeal to prior practice".

Claimed legal training has apparently not immunized you from that tendency.

What means 'MRA blog'?

Posted by: llamas at July 31, 2015 11:12 AM

It means "men's rights activist blog."

Except that, as many in the media like to point out, most such bloggers prefer talk to action - aside from two or so lawyers who actually make their living THROUGH action. That is, the non-lawyers don't seem to care that much about the issues - until they actually become victims, which apparently doesn't happen that much.

What means 'MRA blog'?

While what lenona said is true its mostly used as an insult and an attempt to dissuade other readers from following the blog.

Usually in retaliation for others failing to criticize men enough or for criticizing any action any woman ever takes, or opinion she expresses at all.

"The Glock is NOT built to "deter" anyone. It is built to shoot things, specifically people."

You are confusing form with function again.

Is it the police's job to kill people? Or do they carry GLOCKs because the threat of force is often enough?

And what possible relevance do your pointless examples have to the operation and purpose of the military? And the fact that 90 percent of their mission is logistic or administrative?

Read some Sun Tzu or Von Clauswitz.

I am also somewhat in agreement with Allison, ahw, and others.

When I was in the Army, there was some real overt and covert discrimination against women.

Pregnancy or having children, even if married meant the automatic end of your career, up until about 1982.

The regulations specifically allowed for many benefits to dependent wives, and there were none for dependent husbands.

90 percent of the commands in my Army branch were closed to women officers, and there were no set asides for those few commands that were open to women (and without a command you would not be promoted above Captain)

I watched one of the finest officers I knew, a woman in the first class of women at West Point struggle to try and finish out a 20 year career due to the rampant discrimination we were up against.
I saw the handwriting on the wall, and left at the seven year mark.

I don't spend my time gnashing my teeth about how unfairly I was treated but I watched minority men who couldn't speak Engish and were dumber than a box of rocks be promoted over Academy grads who had been boxed in by by rampant discrimination against white men ( and white women) because we didn't fill any of their little diversity quotas.

Yea, some women abuse maternity leave.

But there is no magical unicorn time, or place where perfect justice exists.

I learned that way before the age of 18. And different *policies* are not the answer.

But there is no magical unicorn time, or place where perfect justice exists.

Nor is there any place where that argument can be used to dismiss injustices against women.

Try it, I dare you

Look you wanna argue life is inherently unfair - I cant argue with that.

You only trot that argument out in the face of valid complaints which happen to involve the behavior of women, that I will argue gainst

"You are confusing form with function again."

Complete nonsense. You're insisting on pretending things that are not true.

The knife is made to cut, the gun is made to shoot, the SSBN is made to fry entire cities. All of these things are subject to choice w/r/t use, but why they are built and how they are built is not subject to debate.

Amazing that you go the other way from the public tendency to "blame the gun"...