A classic example of this is the way parental leave is addressed in many countries.
The fact that, in many countries, women have much greater rights in terms of paid parental leave, means it's economically logical for employers to discriminate against them, plus women miss out dis proportionally on time building career.
The obvious way to solve this is to have equal parental leave rights - this then entirely removes the cost imbalance to the employer.[1]
However in many countries you don't see major campaigns for true equality - often you see campaigns to increase the inequality ( improve womens rights, but not mens ).
This is clearly driven by the worry about the cost of equalising the rights by giving men significant paid parental leave.
[1] Obviously there are biological differences - but if you widen the window during which parental leave can be taken to beyond just after birth, then both parents can participate equally - and there are working models in some Scandinavian countries.
I feel that parental leave is a strawman argument used in lieu of true issues. That is - I’ve heard radical feminists use it as a way of showing that they care about mens’ rights, while ignoring education/father/violence issues.
It's not really about 'mens rights' it's about whether you are interested in true quality above economic output. Sure you could paint the lack of engagement in true equality in this area as a sign of one-sided gender based campaigning - but I think the original poster is saying that what's really driving a lot of this are bigger economic factors - increasing the output by getting women into the workforce etc, while pretending it's about equality.
So for example, there was a big push for equal pay in the BBC in the UK ( quite right ) - however what tended to happened in practice was the higher paid men getting the push as oppose to bringing up female salaries to match.
This is because salaries for 'talent' are negotiated by agents based on perceived rarity - if it becomes more acceptable for women to be a presenter then you have doubled supply.
And in general people the lower end of pay is based on what they need to survive - so in a societal model where only one person in a family was working, then you needed to pay them X - if both are working you can afford to halve the salary without the workers not being able to live.
It takes a while for these effects to filter through as employers are loathed to generally out and out cut existing wages - but increased supply of labour will surely impact salaries over the long term.
Note none of the above is a reason to not pursue equality - it's just you have to have your eyes open to the bigger picture in terms of who's hands does the benefit of the increased economic output end up in....
The fact that, in many countries, women have much greater rights in terms of paid parental leave, means it's economically logical for employers to discriminate against them, plus women miss out dis proportionally on time building career.
The obvious way to solve this is to have equal parental leave rights - this then entirely removes the cost imbalance to the employer.[1]
However in many countries you don't see major campaigns for true equality - often you see campaigns to increase the inequality ( improve womens rights, but not mens ).
This is clearly driven by the worry about the cost of equalising the rights by giving men significant paid parental leave.
[1] Obviously there are biological differences - but if you widen the window during which parental leave can be taken to beyond just after birth, then both parents can participate equally - and there are working models in some Scandinavian countries.