Give chance to dad's.. let's talk of fair play, on a level playing field.
Women's day messages,journals, magazine were filled with news on extended benefits organisations are providing or proposing to provide to female employees to curb diversity and inclusion issues
These schemes (though good) make me think really hard, we are doing our bit for females but missing the fact on gender equality here ?
What if dad wants to spend this 1 year to work from home and manage responsibility while mom wants to go work at office and they prefer these roles.
Why not give chance to males to bring kids to office meetings at off-locations kids up to 3 to 5 years with them on business trips.. why you have to make it so obvious with your schemes that this is a female's job. Why no sabbaticals for males to raise their kids, they may be single fathers, or they may simply want to choose to do this.
Give chance to dad's. . They will grab it, they will participate, they will respect females at work even more. And they won't have excuse that they don't get such benefits.
These benefits must be need based not gender based. And I truly believe in what I am writing here.
There's a time and need to change social mindset, to include females at workplace and welcome them back after their breaks. But at the same time, the need is to provide flexibility but equally to both genders. Yes, difficult to determine genuineness of a request but then what is easy??
Social mindsets don't turn with few benefits few organisations provide, there they definitely serve as retention tools offering unique benefits in this competitive world. Behavioral changes would not come to light unless organisations give equal chance and benefit to both genders. There are things like paternity leaves etc., but taking care of family, kids, elders goes much beyond few paternity leaves and is responsibly of both genders and both genders need equal benefits to be able to do that.
I am not saying schemes for females are not a good idea, but only that from a social perspective they further skew gender equality mindset and somewhere subtly define different roles for different genders.
Would like to know what my friends and ex colleagues think on this perspective.
