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Why dads still need to fight for better parental leave rights

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I think the introduction of shared parental leave is a great thing. I’ll be honest, I don’t think it will lead to a revolution in childcare, but it is an enormous step in the correct direction.

I’m not convinced it will lead to a huge increase in stay at home fathers. It will, however, give men a greater opportunity to get involved with their children in the early days and, crucially, it will give families flexibility to decide how to organise childcare following the arrival of a new born.

In case you haven’t guessed it, I am leading up to a massive “but”. We’ll deal with that in a moment.

First of all, for those unaware the present maternity and paternity leave systems will be consigned to history as of April 2015. In its place a system of shared parental leave will be introduced. Women will have a mandatory period of two weeks maternity leave. After this mother and father will be able to share fifty weeks of leave and 37 weeks of statutory pay (men will still have the right to two week’s paternity leave so long as it is taken within 56 days of the birth).

In theory, mum could hand the reigns over to dad and return to work after her two week spell of maternity leave ends. Alternatively the couple could decide to spend three months at home together and dad then return to work or whatever suits them best.

Are mums winners or losers?

With April fast approaching, I’ve seen increased discussion and debate about shared parental leave. I have to say I have seen some very compelling arguments coming from the pro-breast feeding lobby. The consensus seems to be that women are essentially losing the right to a guaranteed and protracted period of maternity leave.

I don’t agree with this argument, as I think women are gaining something much more valuable (ie the ability to share the burden of childcare). That said, I sympathise with the argument. You can hardly blame the pro-breastfeeding lobby for expressing concern about this aspect of shared parental leave.

This, however, is where we build up to the massive “but” I was talking about. Women are losing the right to a protracted period of maternity leave. Although men will still have the right to two weeks of paternity leave, there are no safeguards in place to stop a woman from taking all the shared parental leave herself. Mum cannot be forced to share the leave if she doesn’t want (in the spirit of fairness, dad could also refuse to share the leave if he were the main carer).

Let’s not be dramatic. I think the majority of women will be doing cartwheels at the thought of dad at least taking a month or two off following the birth of a child. Speaking from personal experience, this is something any woman who has had a hard or surgical birth will particularly appreciate.

Some mums will refuse to share 

Even so, there is likely to be a small population of women who will refuse to share the parental leave. Maybe the relationship will have broken down, maybe there is a question over paternity or maybe the mum just has no confidence in the father (which can happen for a variety of both genuine and nefarious reasons). There may be instances where interfering and overbearing relatives from the extended family tell the father he is not needed or welcome.

I certainly don’t mean to point the finger at women. Men can be controlling or have no confidence in their partners. If a man happened to be the main carer, there’s every chance he may also refuse to share the leave. The reality, however, is that mum is generally in the more powerful position in the early days and so if anyone is going to be frozen out of the family, it is more likely to be dad.

In other nations where shared parental leave is in force, a “use it or lose it” clause has been inserted into the rules. In other words a man must use some of his shared parental leave within a set time frame or else he will loose the right to it altogether. In most cases this was done because men didn’t take up their leave because they had fears their employer may disapprove if he took a lengthy break to be with the children.

Dads need to fight for a better deal

No such clause exists in the UK’s rules. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has already said such a move may need to be considered.

If implemented, this may deal with two issues in one go. Firstly, it would put employers in the position where they had to accept that men are likely to take some time off following the birth of a child. Secondly, it would put men and women on a more equal footing and make it more difficult for either party to refuse to share the parental leave.

I believe the next battle we will need to fight is to get a “use it or lose” it clause into the shared parental leave rules. This, I’m afraid, is a battle that us guys will need to fight.

Before signing off, let me repeat what I said at the start; I think shared parental leave is a great thing. It’s a major step in the right direction. To use a cliché, Rome wasn’t built in a day and over the waters in the Republic of Ireland men still only get two weeks of unpaid paternity leave. This shows how far the UK has travelled compared to some nearby neighbours. I simply think we need to accept the new rules, great though they are, will need revising to bring about even greater parity.

—Photo: flickr/Wrote 

John Adams is a married stay at home dad with two young daughters. He was previously a journalist and PR / communications professional but gave this up in 2010 to be a homemaker and look after the children.

In 2012 he launched a parenting blog focused on his experiences as a “man that holds the babies” called Dadbloguk.com  and he now writes for a variety of different publications in addition to his own blog and writes regular articles for insideMAN.

In the run up to launch of the film Down Dog on 14 February, insideMAN is running a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.

For more information about the film see www.downdogfilm.com

Is it possible to fight for gender equality for women AND men?

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John Barry is a chartered psychologist who likes the idea of gender equality for women and girls and thinks it should be applied to men and boys too.

—This is article #33 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

We see it time and again: in hurt and high moral tones, someone makes a deliberately attention-grabbing remark supporting gender equality for women; a valid challenge to the point is made but dismissed without proper consideration, and the challenger quickly feels that proper discussion of gender equality is effectively prohibited.

For example, Ms X says ‘We need gender quotas to get more women into the boardroom to redress the historic culture of gender inequality in the workplace’, to which Mr Y replies ‘Quotas don’t promote equality, they impose positive discrimination. People should get jobs by virtue of their skills not by virtue of their sex’.

Although his rebuttal is completely reasonable, his point falls on deaf ears. But maybe there is an important lesson to be learned here: if the way you make your point always leads to the dog house, then it’s time to think about making your point in a different way.

Gender equality could be a common goal

Put it this way: if a feminist is says ‘I want equal rights for women’ and you say ‘In reality you are demanding special rights for women, and that tramples on the rights of men’, the result is usually two people not listening to each other, and the potential for progress is limited.

However if you step back for a second you see that on one level both people are demanding the same thing: equal gender rights. In other words, they are really on the same team. Therefore instead of each person taking the opposite side in a debate, maybe both could focus on fighting for their common goal of gender equality.

So how do we start to focus more common goals?

Well here are some suggestions. Next time someone says ‘We need gender quotas to get more women into engineering’, you might say ‘If we want to use quotas to achieve gender equality, then let’s also have quotas for men in fields that are dominated by women, for example, quotas for male teachers in the classroom and quotas for male psychologists’.

Taking another example, if someone says ‘Most women don’t report when they are raped. We need better support for rape victims’, try saying ‘Yes, we need to hear the voices of rape victims, including the thousands of men who are raped every year in prison, which is hardly ever reported. Let’s work together to support male and female victims of rape’.

Men are  a gender too! 

Or if someone says ‘Women earn less than men in sports, due to sexism’, you might say ‘Yes: one solution would be to make all sports mixed-sex and let the most successful sportsperson earn the most pay. In addition, let’s have equal pay for male part time workers and male models, who at present earn less than women’.

What I am suggesting is that if someone says they want gender equality, then it might be necessary to remind them that ‘gender’ includes men, and that ‘equality’ implies equal treatment. If someone claims to support gender equality but only for women, they need to know that they have either misinterpreted the term ‘equality’ to mean ‘special rights for women only’, or misunderstood the term ‘gender’ to mean ‘women only’.

So if they really want gender equality, let’s remind them that they need to dedicate themselves to championing men’s rights just as vociferously as they do women’s rights.

—Picture credit: Flickr/Tom Magliery

John Barry is a chartered psychologist and works as a Research Associate at UCL Medical School, London.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.