Mandatory Paternity Leave?

I had to think a bit on what I want to start off with here. On National Public Radio (hereinafter NPR) the other day they had this lady one who was essentially making the following argument: Although we have a more egalitarian society with regard to women in the workplace, we still have problems. Specifically she noted that in many, if not most, companies, men get paternity leave equal to the maternity leave given to their female counterparts. The problem, she felt, was that the men frequently did not take or did not take all of the maternity leave which made their female counterparts look bad. This, she postulated resulted in a promotion bias towards the men. The solution she urged was that men should (or maybe even should be forced to) take their entire paternity leaves. I may be misstating her argument, but this is what I heard her to say.

Now, I don’t want to belittle the problem because I do, honestly, see the issue here. The fact is that women are the ones who carry the child for nine months and thus women are the ones who bear the physical burdens of carrying and birthing the child. And after that ordeal it is the women who need and deserve some rest, and who should not be disadvantaged for doing so when they want to return to work.

But, the proposed solution here is just absurd. If the men want to take some time off to get used to being the father of a new infant and to help Mom who deserves it, great! If they do not however, that should be fine too. They should not have to and should not have to feel guilty if they do not. Further, from a certain perspective this amounts to telling the men they are being too efficient and that they need to be less efficient so that women can compete with them. Something just seems wrong with that to me, if for no other reason that the fact it seems to imply that the women cannot compete unless the men handicap themselves. Women, it seems to me, are quite capable of competing on a level playing field without the men having to take time off so the women do not look bad. There has got to be some other way to address this. I have no idea what it is though.

Then again, I am not even a father, let alone walking a mile in the other girl’s moccasins. This problem may defy easy solution.