Maternity Leave For Childless Women?

Any Sex and the City fans out there will remember the episode A Woman's Right to Shoes, A.K.A. No Shoes, No Service. Angry that she's had to buy gifts for her girlfriends when they got married or had children, Carrie decides that although she doesn't have a husband or a baby, she deserves her own single girl registry (at Manolo Blahnik). I always thought it was incredibly selfish and bratty of her, and that the entire universe would agree with me.

But according to Henry Wallop of The Telegraph, 74% of women in Britain might side with Carrie -- or at least they think that women should be able to have a six-month maternity leave, whether they have a baby or not.

Crazy, right? But then Sam Baker, editor-in-chief of Red magazine made an interesting point:

"This isn't a working mum versus working non-mums argument. Nobody thinks maternity leave is a holiday. Employers, especially now, need to incentivise their staff in imaginative ways and that could involve offering leave. Some companies are already doing this."

But does this make maternity leave seem too much like a vacation? Can the two different leaves really be compared? What do you think?