Fred Schwarz at NRO reports that European laws and customs discourage employment of mothers. I guess this is supposed to be bad because it's Europe and "socialist", while America is good for being ruthlessly capitalist and putting moms right to work.
Granted, the damper that generous maternal leave puts on employment of mothers and expectant mothers may be an unintended consequence of policies with good feminist intentions and ignorance of how people actually make hiring decisions. Nonetheless, it seems like this isn't an uncommon European phenomenon--laws that are "socialist" in theory but, in effect, actually preserve social customs and economic ways of life that American capitalism has long since torn to shreds.
Europe is killing itself by other means, of course, so probably neither approach is ultimately sustainable, but it's a commentary on the stupidity of our politics that a conservative site agrees with feminists that stigmas that encourage mothers to be parents instead of wage slaves are bad things.
