Sun-Times: Women get work perks, men get zilch

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the entire article here:

Women get work perks, men get zilch

October 1, 2006
BY BETSY HART
Some people are just complainers. Working Mother magazine, in a well-reported cover story, has just come out with its list of the top 100 companies for working moms, and it's a smorgasbord of good stuff for working women.
At Abbott, the No. 1 company, 65 percent of employees use some form of flexible work arrangement. American Express allows ''employees to take advantage of flextime, compressed weeks, telecommuting and job-sharing.''

My favorite? Genentech has a hair salon and a full-time concierge to help moms ''knock some items off their to-do list -- from waiting for the cable guy to planning a child's birthday.'' (Now that I could really use!)

Let's review: While often the benefits technically exist for men and women, they are overwhelmingly designed for, and used by, women. And these typically larger employers are setting a pattern -- and a high bar -- for all kinds of other, often smaller, employers.

So it's no surprise that the Wall Street Journal reported this week in ''The Mommy Drain: Employers Beef Up Perks to Lure New Mothers Back to Work,'' by Sue Shellenbarger, that more and more companies are doing everything they can to keep moms in place after baby arrives. Employers, the Journal reports, are ''increasing maternity leave pay, facilitating longer leaves, [and] offering meaningful jobs with reduced travel and hours.'' And let's not forget the hair salon.

So, over at the National Organization for Women, was its Web site cheering these trends? Um, no.

When I brought the Working Mother cover story to the attention of the folks at NOW, President Kim Gandy told me that, yes, there are some positive trends there, and yet, she explained to me, the report just wasn't on NOW's radar screen.

Here's what is, as featured on NOW's Web site: ''NOW and other women's rights organizations plan to follow up on the U.N. Human Rights Committee recommendations concerning sex-based employment discrimination in the United States.''

NOW may find that at this point, such ''discrimination'' may largely be running against the guys. I mean, how many men can indulge in the luxury of ever thinking to themselves, ''Gee, would I like to be respected for having a meaningful job with all kinds of perks for being a dad, or respected for staying home and raising my children, or maybe a little of both?''

Yes, it is certainly the case that a lot of women still have crummy jobs. Guess what? That has long been the case for many men, too. That's not what we are talking about here.

We're talking about a generation of women in the United States who have unprecedented, extraordinary possibilities and choices available to them in professional and family life, including ones that are, for all practical purposes, not open to men. And, yes, I fully concede that the early feminist movement ignited many of these amazing advances.

My mother used to point out that some people just aren't happy unless they have something to complain about. So it seems to be with the modern-day sisterhood.

Well, at least the rest of us can celebrate that, hey, we've come a long way, baby!