If a woman who you hire today - and give job training & development to for 1 year - gets pregnant, say, 10 months from now - and after having the kid decides to take 5 years off as a stay-at-home mom...

Then you, the employer, have lost a significant amount of time, effort and money in the hiring/training process! And now you have to repeat it all over again...

The same scenario could apply (though typically less frequently) for a male job candidate: you hire/train/invest in him, his wife gets pregnant 10-12 months after - then he chooses to be a stay-at-home house-husband for the next 5 years or so.

Once again, the employer / hirer gets screwed.

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My point is not that nobody should hire potentially child-raising couples, or that career-minded people should not have kids. That's silly.

BUT - employers should have the right to ask about the child/family plans of a potential employee...and if the job is contract-based, they should have the right to put riders in there.

Look, some jobs require an intense amount of time commitment and investment...both by employee and employer. Hollywood would have us believe this is amoral and evil...but if I, a single person, choose to invest in 60-70 hour weeks as an engineer, that is my choice to do so.

And having my boss, research team and myself screwed over in terms of workload, training, etc. because some co-worker - male or female - who presumably made an ACTIVE choice to accept a job offer with us then reneges to go play with their rugrat...well, that is simply unfair and unjust.

And isn't feminism supposed to be about fairness and justice?

There are some kids playing on your lawn. Why don't you go scream at them to get off of it?

I'm sick of stereotypical curmudgeons yelling at younger generations for ridiculous reasons? "Generation Slut"?? Yeah, we are the ones doing "free-love" and swinging in the '50s and '70s...

Oh, wait, that's right...we young "Sluts" weren't even born yet! Hmmmm.....

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Twenty-somethings such as myself (and adolescents, etc. in the future) will be the ones cleaning up the environmental, social economic and political messes that you oh-so-saintly seniors have made in our country and world.

So do us all a favor and just sit in your porch and drink your Metamucil. You boomers have done enough (damage) already.

Love,

Generation Slut

Though the "Greatest Generation" folk weren't saints themselves...they just kept their pervy, slutty shit in the closet better.

Fair enough - but doesn't the employer have the right to protect themself against a bad, costly hiring decision when someone they recruit, train, invest in gets pregnant and walks away from the position?

If the "personal intrusion" part is the problem, that can be solved by a contract-based hiring or job offer approach. If you plan to have kids but don't wanna talk about it, then the ethical thing to do is agree to shorter contract periods. Conversely, a job applicant such as myself who never plans to have children can agree to a longer contract.

Contract times can then be used by the employer to figure out how much training & development should really be invested in a new hire - on a case by case basis.

I'm curious what transadvocates would say about this:

If world-class (biologically) male swimmer Michael Phelps starts wearing falsies, dresses and taping his cock to his thigh to hide it...and identifying himself as a woman: Should he be allowed to compete in women's swimming events at the Olympics?

If soon after his inauguration, Barack Obama starts taking hormones, divorces his wife, grows boobs and starts wearing pantsuits...does that mean that America's first FEMALE President has been elected and is in office?

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Look, I'm pretty libertarian about this. You have the right to identify with whichever gender you want (provided you don't deceive people like potential sex or romantic partners about it).

But please, spare me: unless you have a full sex change operation (which Beatie clearly has not done), then you have not switched gender.

Yeah, the GLBT deconstructionists and pronoun-Nazis want us all to believe there is no such thing as "he" or "she"...but when you drop trou, those distinctions ultimately reveal themselves.

A large clitoris ain't no penis.

And Beatie ain't no pregnant "man".

A: The McSoylent Green double cheeseburger, of course!

Soon to appear on the $10 Value Menu (adjusted for inflation)...

With 6-8 billion tasty meat sources out there, you truly can Have It Your Way!

Firstly, to catslave: you sound pretty darn cool. Too bad (for me & other single guys) you are married! =)

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As far as movie musicals: I'm a straight dude who really enjoyed the film versions of "Sweeney Todd" and "The Producers". (What can I say - Mel Brooks made me laugh at age 9...and at age 29.) However, "Chicago" was a pain for me to endure...and while I like Colin Firth, I think I'll pass on "Mamma Mia!" as well.

And really, what were they thinkin' scheduling its opening weekend against "The Dark Knight"? Heck, even my gay male theater buddies - who are a big chunk of "Mamma.."'s target demographic - have prioritized "The Dark Knight" #1...at least partly in homage to Heath for taking on his role in "Brokeback Mountain."

WALL-E & The Dark Knight = best movies of the year.

Gay male theater buddies --> gay friends who are into theater and theater arts.

NOT...ummm...'theater buddies' as in XXX Adult Theaters, LOL. Jeez, they sure are gonna give me some grief over that...=)