Japaneese city council requires male employees ......

[Socialist Dem]

The city council of Ota, Japan, will require male employees to take a total of six weeks of paid leave before their babies' first birthdays and then explain what they learned in a bid to end perceptions that child care is only a woman's job

Wow, that's one way to break cultural perceptions! Pay them to participate in their child's first year, then turn in a report about the experience.

It's too bad that here, a lot of times both dad AND mom have to work in order to support their family and are gone.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/041202/photos_od_afp/041202170644_nvcg3jlz_photo0&e=14&ncid=1756

[GRLMGC]

1. That's interesting

I wonder how it'll work out.

[Warpy]

2. Nah, most of them will go fishing, go to bars, hang out in

pachinko parlors. They will NOT participate in the messy business of infant care. Their culture is even more gender typed than ours is, if you can imagine such a thing.

[Nikia]

3. At our company, guys took family leave

A few guys at our plant have become fathers and they have all taken between 1 and 4 weeks family leave after the birth of their child. This is unpaid leave for guys that are realtively low wage so they probably would have taken more if it were paid. I think that requiring it takes any negative perceptions off of this either way. Caring for a ba intense, it is good that they are encouraging men to participate.