Most of us would not expect a man to step forward as a leader of the gender equality movement in the workplace. After all, women, not men, have had to work tirelessly to overcome the gender wage gap, to garner more leadership positions, and to have the other sex recognize them not for their looks, but for their very real contributions to business in the U.S.
Right?
While it’s true that women experience much of the existing disparity in today’s workforce and fight hard for these equal rights, men not only experience gender discrimination in certain aspects of work, but can be incredible allies for women and gender equality.
Perhaps the most prevalent area of discrimination against men in the workplace is paternity leave. No, men do not need the physical recovery time required from pushing a tiny human out of their bodies. But try telling a modern father that his relationship with his newborn child is less important than the mother’s, and see how that goes over.
“Whether the men of today had active fathers or not in their own lives, this generation is defining new ways to be a dad,” Josh Levs, father and accomplished journalist shared.
However, the majority of current paternity leave policies—or lack thereof—undermine the importance of a father’s involvement in parenting and the family model from the earliest stages. While mothers are given weeks off to spend with their child (and keep in mind most policies on maternity leave or family leave in general are not adequate in the majority of states either), fathers are given days, or expected not to take leave at all due to overwhelmingly macho expectations left over from the Mad Men era of business.
If this is your first time realizing this is an issue, you’re not alone. While there have always been dissenters of these archaic policies, the fight for equal family leave across the board has only gained steam among policy makers and businesses fairly recently.
Before, those loudest to speak against these policies were effectively silenced with ridicule in the workplace or termination. But in this fight, for equality and to win back the family our current generations want, Levs’ message has been heard above the rest of the noise.
It’s not just a message in support of men’s rights and paternity leave either, but a call to action to level the playing field and advocate for more women higher up the corporate ladder through the enactment of these paternity and paid family leave policies.
Levs has succeeded in giving men a voice in an arena where a softer side of masculinity has been largely unwanted and ignored for decades. The father of three from Upstate New York published All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together in 2015, garnering the support of Maria Shriver, Bob Saget, UN Women’s HeforShe campaign, and numerous other sources in support of adequate paternity leave.
His commitment to the cause of paternity leave may have come about when he was a father of two and he and his wife were expecting their third child, but his acceptance of gender equality dated back to his childhood.
“Many people from my generation were raised to the ‘Free to Be… You and Me’ album compiled by Ms. Magazine,” he shared. “These songs and sketches about gender equality led us to be moms and dads that expected this. But the policies didn’t grow up with us.”
This became abundantly clear when he realized his benefits at CNN only included two weeks of paternity leave as the biological father of his child, when virtually any other parent—biological mothers, adoptive parents, partners of those who chose to adopt a child but is not one of the adoptive parents, fathers of children born to a surrogate—were granted 10 weeks of paid leave.
Believing this was merely an unfortunate oversight, Levs raised the issue with the company’s HR department, and was informed that no one had ever raised his point before. No response was given to Levs’ concern, and after his wife gave birth prematurely, his motion for longer paternity leave was denied. CNN asked him to come back to work after the mandated two weeks.
Levs filed a claim for gender discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in a surprise for the ages, received an incredible amount of support. Several news agencies covered the stories that he himself used to cover from a father and man’s perspective as the “dad columnist” and “resident dad” on CNN and the network’s sister network HLN. Men’s organizations were only second in support to the women’s organizations, which showed him how critical this issue was, not just for men’s rights, but for women’s rights as well.
Although a decision was not quick in coming, CNN and its parent company Time Warner did change the policy: first, by adding a third paid week for dads who have kids the traditional way, and then a year later, changing their leave policies to six weeks for everyone in the life event of having a child, traditional way or not.
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