She is taking a sabbatical and will presumably not be paid. Any man could do the same. I understand you're trying to make a point about the fact that parental leave should be equal, but this was an off-base and unnecessarily acerbic way of making it.
I would have loved to have the privilege to watch the first year of my daughter's development without distraction.... But I'm a man... so, two weeks (and two weeks seems generous in comparison to my friends' experience)
This seems like an example of how things are broken. Women are penalized[1] as employees because, unlike men, they might take maternity leave someday. One solution is to give everyone parental leave — and some countries do.
As a single guy, I love this, since it penalises folks in relationships, since they might someday take parental leave but I'll be in the office day-in and day-out.
Still don't see how this has to do with gender. The FMLA guarantees at least 12 weeks of unpaid paternity leave. Sure it is unpaid, but some companies offer paid leave. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix are all examples of places that offer paid paternity leaves of longer than two weeks. Netflix offers a year of paid leave to both moms and dads. Sure some leave policies give more leave to mothers than fathers, but some groups are arguing fathers should get just as much.
You may not have had an option to take a year of paid leave. But technically anyone can take a self-funded sabbitical. Just most people probably wouldn't be able to come back to their old job.
But it's not like Jessica is really taking a risk here. She's the cofounder of an extremely successful startup incubator. I"m sure YC wants her back. And she probably has enough money to retire and do whatever she wants. Plus, I'm assuming she has the skills to get another great work opportunity if she doesn't want to go back to YC in a year.
I do think that a lot of companies are much more accommodating for mothers than fathers. But I just think that Jessica is in a position where she can basically do whatever she wants no matter what any company is willing to work with. So I don't think gender has anything to do with it. Anyone would have the same opportunities in her position. For instance, Bob O'Rear retired early from Microsoft to start a cattle ranch in Texas.
