Infographic: Tech companies setting new standard for parental leave

Mother Jones just posted some pretty startling infographics comparing the U.S. government and tech companies’ parental leave policies. The federal government doesn’t mandate any paid leave for new moms and dads, but corporations like Facebook, Instagram, and reddit are setting a new standard by offering all employees, regardless of gender, 17 weeks with their new baby. These three companies are also leading the pack by providing the same leave time to adoptive parents and those who have a surrogate birth. I’m not convinced that major tech companies are great feminist heroes (see: #FBrape and the 11 extra weeks of leave Google will give you only if you’re a biological mother whose fetus grew in your own body), but that makes the evidence that their policies are dramatically more progressive than the law particularly damning for our government.

Note: The first chart, illustrating paid leave for “new moms,” seems actually just to show time off for mothers who give birth; all other parents are clumped together in the second “new dads” chart. Obviously not all moms are able to do the whole fetus in womb/baby coming out of the vagina thing, while some dads can, and many who have that option choose another method.