NEW YORK ¨C On the face of it, Prince William¡¯s decision to take two weeks of job-protected, paid statutory paternity leave is absurd.
The heir to the British throne can live without the approximately $206 a week in taxpayer funds that men in the United Kingdom are entitled to receive if they take time off to welcome a baby.
But as a symbolic gesture, the prince¡¯s choice is, as the Brits would say, brilliant. For in William¡¯s subtle, necessarily apolitical, good-guy way, he has issued the boldest possible statement of support for true workplace equality between men and women. It¡¯s a message that was too quickly buried amid all the baby-naming hysteria this week. And it¡¯s one that we in the United States need to hear if we¡¯re ever going to get past the place where women have been mired for the past decade.
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