Letter: Women are not naturally better at child care

Sir: I was at first interested, then dismayed, by Angela Lambert's article. I can only hope it outraged any 'modern' men who read it.

As a woman with a full-time job, expecting her second child in May, I was interested to hear of the remarkable improvement in the lot of pregnant employees. But as I look forward to several months' maternity leave, my husband has no choice but to continue working.

Women will never achieve, nor even, in my view, deserve equality in the workplace until the choices they are granted are also accorded to their male counterparts. Yes, currently, mothers have a choice, but employers also have a choice: to employ or promote men with uninterrupted work records who will, health allowing, provide continual future productivity in return for the expense of employing them; or women with gaps in their CVs, whom the employer may have to pay to take time off work to look after a baby.

Men have no choice but to make their careers their first priority, no choice but to channel all their efforts into becoming successful in competing for promotion and higher-salaried jobs. Is it surprising that they seem to be better at it than women? And is it surprising that, while men are excluded from the early stages of parenting, women, according to Angela Lambert, seem to be better at it than men?

Yours faithfully,

HEIDI BRADSHAW

Cambridge

28 March