It strikes me that one of the possible contributing factors to inequality in the workplace and inequality of pay and responsibility is down to the fact that women are the gender that bears children: the possibility of a prolonged absence from the workplace may well be regarded adversely by employers for reasons of continuity in the post, retraining costs, replacement recruitment costs etc.  To avoid this – why not simply oblige all of the child’s parents (both men and women) to take off the same amount of time for childcare?  With all parents being forced to take off equal amounts of time, the advantages in employing a man over a woman would be greatly reduced – and the extension of this to any and all adoptive parents would further reduce any imbalance due to the fact that it is still women who bear children.

Children are not born with a complete ability to operate in the world or society, and therefore they require the presence of some form of parent figure or family.  The moment we value one parent higher than another we make a value judgement on both; one is needed and the other is not.  Can we honestly say that this remains valid in a world where the children born no longer need to be breastfed?