I have two problems with maternity leave. One is that the planet is already overpopulated as it is, and maybe we shouldn't be encouraging people to reproduce. Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that people have to choose between having a child and keeping a job. The other, of course, is that these kinds of policies are usually aimed at mothers only, and it doesn't seem fair to me that fathers should be excluded, especially since it's also their money that goes to fund them. I'm not sure how anyone could have expected a different result, honestly. Assuming that two employees, one female and the other male, are equally competent and the woman chooses to take a year off to care for her newborn baby, why would the company reward her and not the man with a promotion? Naturally the employee who shows greater commitment to the success of the company is going to get the promotion. This isn't a matter of sexual discrimination, since women are given the same opportunities as men, and sometimes more (for example in the cases where paternity leave is not an option), and it's their choices that affect their career negatively. It's also worth noting that some countries require big companies to meet a certain quota of women in upper management positions (I think the number is 40%), so once again, men are discriminated against in the name of equality. - The MRA dude :^)Elsewhere in Europe, generous maternity leaves have meant that women are much less likely than men to become managers or achieve other high-powered positions at work.
I'm going to ignore most of your statement, and just point out that countries that offer generous maternity leave (stable western democracies, mostly) also generally have very low birthrates, many even negative....that the planet is already overpopulated as it is, and maybe we shouldn't be encouraging people to reproduce. Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that people have to choose between having a child and keeping a job.