@adam-l I am not even sure that it did make sense back then. it still isn't fair to men to give women these privileges to be less effective and remain employed. Men are being excluded form jobs for these women and then the women are being paid equally for less than equal work.

I can see that there is an argument that it is in the interest of the state to limit the damage done by working mothers to the next generation but really that is only a sticking plaster that men are paying for. In the end if you want to reproduce, you need to be able to afford it.

The working class were able to reproduce fine before maternity leave. Children need their mother right up to primary school age, not just in the first months. Governments have gradually tried to roll out the free childcare provisions further and further to make up for the loss of mothers to children but in the end the sticking plaster is not working. Dump your kids on semi educated woman who is caring for a lot of other kids (day care) and go off to work is not the same as care for and educate your children and it shows in the weak, immature, maladjusted youth of today.

All this "tax" on employers goes into the employer's wage budget. That budget does not go to pay working men who feed families, so no wonder now its hard to keep a family on one income, regardless of excessive female expectations.

@Bozza This study is a perfect example of the unfairness of maternity leave. Women are given a year off at the expense of the employer or the tax payer. They get their job kept open only to then return as under par employees and this is all fine. In fact if anyone tries to fire them even if they are terrible its sexual discrimination.

There is a religion here that says "women are equal to men" and where they are not, then it is not a problem with the truth of this tenet, there is a problem with the person who points this out . You don't question the tenets of woke it or there is blasphemy.

Darwin lived in an age where reason was prized. Faith was valued too but reason was allowed to make its case and reason eventually prevailed and faith adjusted its position. Today reason will end your career.

We live in a age of puritan tyranny.

@Bozza Nice observation. The Welsh are indigenous because they were in Britain before anyone started recording (which means we just forget about the migration of the Celtic culture, the migration of the Yamnaya and the migration of the neolithic peoples, cos no one wrote about it so it doesn't matter). Indigenous is good, so Welsh are good).

The anglo saxon immigrants oppress the welsh. Bad anglo saxon immigrants.

The anglo saxon natives oppress the muslim immigrants (bad anglo saxons)

When the old labour voters of the valleys in south wales hate muslim immigrants they are ignorant racists (bad welsh)

When the welsh stop speaking english and start speaking welsh in a shop when an English man enters they are good welsh.

The only way this liberal bullshit can really be made sense of is with the theory of protected characteristic top trumps, (which I keep saying I want to sell as a fun family card game in the run up to christmas)