[DropbearRob]

I totally get your point, and from a capitalist perspective the solution of the media company in the article dis-incentivises hiring women as a dollar per hour of work metric instantly makes hiring a woman less cost effective.

I've seen comments like men don't have the day of pain, so don't "need the holiday" but these people obviously don't own a business or pay other peoples wages. When you are a small business you ensure that you hire people based on the maximum return on investment based on skillset and deliverables. If you have 2 identically skilled and equally hard working employees but one works 12 days less per year and gets the same money, you would hire the one who delivers 12 extra days. If you ignore the sex of the applicants and it was down to a purely financial decision (as it always should be in business, especially publicly traded businesses) then you would be neglecting your responsibilities if you hire someone who costs more and delivers less.

The solution may be simply allow flexi-time. Each member of staff must fulfil X number of hours per week, month, year or whatever slice you decide, and when its performed is up to them. This wouldn't work with List-X or restricted sites, where work must be performed on site, but for something like a media company I'm sure you could work from many suitable locations.

[falcolas]

The problem with this logic is that you would never hire a woman, for fear that they could get pregnant and become "unreliable" for 9 months, and completely unavailable for the duration of their maternity leave (while having to keep their job position unfilled).

It's far better to apply some humanity to the equation and just give everyone those extra 12 days off (and (mat|pat)ernity leave), so you're not tempted to discriminate off the "productivity loss".

[DropbearRob]

Im not saying its humane, or just, or right. Its business. The reason you point out is exactly what has happened in the past. In fact my mum used to work for a company that straight up fired any female staff in the secretary pool which got married to protect themselves from exactly the losses you speak of.

Luckily we don't live in that world anymore (40 years ago). And we are working to reduce the dis-incentives of hiring women over men. Im living in the UK where recently paternity and maternity leave are inter-changable and can be split between parents. entitling men to equal leave to women to reduce the incentives of hiring men over women.

There are all kinds of times when people become less productive. Im never advocating never hiring a woman, only that whatever benefits you apply to one act as a hiring dis-incentive unless applied by law to both. Its economics, not ethics.