[muninn_]

I don't disagree with you here. You're right that employers pay for vacation - what I wanted to convey was that a flexible schedule is part of the workplace expectations that are set as part of the contract between employees and employers, but what I don't like is the focus on child-rearing as a battle cry for women to spend less time at work or have a more flexible schedule. Frankly, just don't have a baby then. I view my hobbies as more important than your children or your life decisions, yet I don't get a flexible schedule for those, do I? I don't get flex time off to visit an ailing family member do I? I'm fine with people getting time off for kids, but I'm not ok with it being this giant circle-jerk from HBS every other day about how women need more flex time. Don't have kids then! Work just as many hours as men do! I don't need to have it shoved in my face everyday about how you want to have your cake and eat it too.

I agree with your second point as well. I actually have a great job that I enjoy, but most men my age that I know (anecdote) are under a lot of pressure and have to stay late instead of spending time with their family or pursuing hobbies or whatever. I don't view their plight as any better or worse than that of a mother but it still exists. I feel bad for them.

And with that being said, I do like the Swedish (or is it Norway?) model of allotting time to both parents by law to split as they see fit, versus in the U.S. where it's somehow only about the well-being of mothers. The feminists in the United States have somehow turned gender equality into good stuff for women only, and I have a problem with that. Just as I have a problem with a man making more money than a woman for the same work or sexual misconduct in the workplace as alluded to by the author, though again I don't like how we brush this happening to men under the rug and throw up a "man up" anytime somebody mentions it. I've been uncomfortably sexually harassed (and didn't even realize it at the time) by and older gay man when I interned at a company, including attempting to invite me over and "pay" for me to clean his house, telling me I looked like I had a runners ass, and other related things. At the time I just thought he was a little cooky, he never was explicitly mean, but that was still sexual harassment.