Geographical contexts might prove to be a (slight) problem in this debate, if not any. This pertains to the idea of patriarchal/matriarchal values that might differ in some middle-eastern countries and Islamic Sharia countries.
Team Affirmative
Argument 1: Because we would like to promote gender equality.
Instead of this motion being an action of government paying attention to development of infants in their first few years at home in order for them being nurtured well into teenagers and young adults, this motion is more of a gender issue. Sure enough, Team Affirmative could have another different goal of wanting to have a better next generation of youngsters. But, by all means, please, trust us, run this argument first before going to that one.
What is the current situation under the status quo? Assuming the debate is properly set up in liberal democratic countries (just casually mention it, it doesn’t hurt much of the 7’15” allocated time, will you? It helps to anticipate against trolls) then we are looking at a tradition of pregnancy leave, menstruation cycle leave, and maternity leave.
Several things to concede, though. Team Negative couldn’t challenge that this motion isn’t happening in first-world countries, but they could concede and then state that there will be jealousy coming from third-world countries. Be prepared. And then, bear in mind that government bills are unlikely to pass and reach to the smallest scale of business, even in first-world countries. The scope of government bill coverage surely gets broader and wider the more developed a country is, but even in the most advanced of countries, who is the government to control home business, right? Again, be prepared for this another different argument of jealousy.
Now, gender equality has always been a long-running issue. The burden of proof imposed to Team Affirmative now becomes either to explain how gender equality will be reached (or at least improved) when paternity leaves are granted, or, explain how gender equality will never be reached when the ones taking leaves are still the mothers.
Important components of elaboration include social perspectives from the feminism movement, the labor union, and academics and scholars toward the existence of this working phenomenon. Characterize and emphasize each and every perspective properly, because these perspectives are what shape gender equality.
Argument 2: Because the nature of parenting is both, not one.
This could be an extension from Argument 1, but this needs its own proper handling of explanation due to its importance. By this point, it might have already been mentioned for some elaborations for Argument 1 that aspects that dictate gender equality include the perception of parenting. As long as there exists this maternity leave, females would forever be branded as the child-caterer and males would forever be catered as the breadwinner.
This peace of explanation needs to be developed further, unlike other aspects of elaboration Team Affirmative might have used in Argument 1.
Using the trump card of social perspectives, there is a powerful message sent by the way parenting style is done towards perspective towards gender equality. But more importantly, there has to be an explanation of how this dichotomy – males auto-breadwinner and females auto-stay-at-home – is harmful towards gender equality.
It violates one of the fundamentals that gender equality loathes: labeling. Gender equality dislikes the existence of a coward man being labeled as a girl. Gender equality dislikes the idea of homosexuals being labeled as social rejects. Same goes for this part of labeling.
Argument 3: Because it is going to improve the next generation.
Only now can you run this argument. Because by no means does this argument instantly mean the most important aspect of this debate. This could be strong and convincing, yes, sure of course, but this is only extras. What is more important is the precedents which is Argument 1 (and 2).
Talk about the emotional attachment and how it develops by requiring physical contact. Or at least presence. Talk about the harms and dangers imposed if only one party of parent is there. Explore the imbalances and how it shapes the psychology of the children. Later on, this part of psychology of children will be the strongest part of this explanation, because this psychology development will shape their personality, and this personality, unfortunately comes in large numbers, from the number of working-age families. It could be linked back to how their personality perpetuates the stereotype of mothers having to stay at home and fathers being breadwinners.
Team Negative
Argument 1: Problem-Solution Mismatch (or maybe could be called as Process-Goal Mismatch instead).
After identifying the issue at hand being gender inequalities, address the reason why paternity leaves is not the answer for it.
Explore the causes for gender inequalities. At one point, the reason is going to be because of discrepancies in understanding privileges and rights. Now, there is no problem at all under the current status quo of having only maternity leaves which translate into corporates and business owners as well as governments failing to understand which is privilege and which is right.
Remember to explain privilege and right properly, because your explanation is the basis on how you would like governments and corporates to operate.
By the way, prior to this motion, and even before there was maternity leave, all genders, male and female, had to work with no difference in treatment at all. Did that gender inequality exist back then? Speaks for itself.
Argument 2: Backlashes and Rages!
First, from corporations. Very obvious. Although corporations would legally be required to obey each and every piece of governmental bills religiously, one should expect that there will be repercussions. The ways in which corporations might retaliate are actually granting leaves but deducting other forms of fringe benefits. Next, we have the jurisdiction of governments not fully covering the entire commercial sectors in this country. Assuming a developed but-not-that-very-well-developed country, governments might have influence over large corporations up to medium enterprises. But small businesses that occupy only a single lot (or even half a lot) couldn’t be covered by them. This creates discrepancies, when the motion would cover the interests of only the ones who work on medium to large businesses. An even smaller scale, home businesses, for example that security guard and that personal chauffeur and that domestic worker are not likely to be protected by this motion.
Taking this jealousy one step further, we have the span of coverage of governments differing among countries. More developed countries could cover medium-scale enterprises, as stated before, but developing countries might not even be able to carry this bill past governmental bodies! This leaves private, large-scale enterprises having an abundance of jealous workers over civil officers.
This is what drives jealousy, not only within, but also among countries.
Argument 3: Because it is going to downgrade the significance of fathers who actually care.
Under the current status quo, fathers who actually care catering towards their infants would be requesting day offs, sacrificing part of their work for the sake of nurturing their newborn. This would be flexible, not dictated by the government. He could be like taking day offs every Friday every week, or like 4-5 days every month. The point is, there is this value of actually caring towards children that resides within this kind of fathers. Having the motion pass is going to diminish the significance of this. After all, the children of fathers who actually care towards parenting deserve better than the children from those fathers who have less sense of belonging. But that is not the main point. The thing is, this becomes a form of coercion from the government to dictate the way in which individuals behave. The government dictates how a father should act and live. And the type of government that is likely to do so is a dictatorship.