Sex Discrimination and Fathers
Featured Guest Blogger July 25th, 2008
I almost didn’t want to write this post because the last post that I wrote dealt with Australian work-family policy…and I like to keep a nice variety. But, I can’t help it; I just thought this was too neat to pass up…
Australia’s federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, has just announced her position on several work-family policies (paid maternity leave, women in leadership positions, and sexual harassment, to name a few) as a result of her “Listening Tour,” a 6-month venture across Australia speaking with over 1,000 people about their journey for gender equality. I found one of her post-tour agenda items particularly interesting. As it turns out, she finds herself in a great corner to advocate for gender equality in the workforce, specifically mentioning sex discrimination against working fathers.
While Broderick was once hired to promote women’s equality in the workforce, she recently stated that she wanted to strengthen the Sex Discrimination Act to penalize employers who stick family-friendly fathers on the “daddy track” by refusing to promote them. Fathers have reported that they are not seen as serious players when they “raise their hand” for flexible work schedules, as they are still seen as the breadwinners and as individuals who need to be more committed to their careers. They find that women are more easily granted leave for family time.
Currently, the law only protects fathers who have been fired , not those who have been put on the daddy track without the possibility of promotion. Broderick stated, “If there is one thing I could do to promote gender equality in this country it would be to better share paid and unpaid work between men and women…If we strengthen the family provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, that will allow men to be more involved in their family and women to be more involved in paid work.”
The opposition states that workers who put more into their careers should rightfully get more out of them. Those employees who take more time off should consider career advancement more of a luxury than a right.
We say, keep the discussion going!
For more information from the Sloan Network on this topic, please see our:
• Class Activity featuring information on the Daddy Track
• Statistics about fathers and family leave
• Suggested Readings about fathers and work
Yes. I totally support the initiate to have men be more involved in the family lives. This way they can stop being persecuted for being ‘just the bread winner’ in divorce proceedings.
Daniel.