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The Girl Scouts announced new badges in June: Girls can now earn achievements in coding, cybersecurity, rocket science, and more. No longer are sewing and homemaking the only accomplishments we value in growing girls.
So to reflect these changing times, the Boy Scouts must have parallel badges in babysitting, elder care, and baking, right? Nope.
This stark asymmetry – rapidly expanding opportunities for girls, a snail’s pace of change for boys – matches the pattern in the workplace. Women have taken on paid work, including in traditionally male-dominated fields like accounting and banking, much faster than men have absorbed the unpaid work of household maintenance, including childcare and chores.
It’s not hard to understand why. Women joined the feminist movement because they wanted to share in the prestigious opportunities denied them – a fulfilling career, a high salary, a presence in the public sphere. They wanted to move up to join men in the higher ranks of society.
But the parallel change, men entering roles traditionally occupied by women, is seen by many as a step down. Who would want to stay at home when he could have a “real” job? Why would anyone accept financial dependence on a partner when he could be an equal or bigger earner?
Some men do.
We forget, or maybe ignore, the fact that just as women vary in whether they find personal fulfillment (or not) in paid work, men do, too. Some men find plenty of satisfaction in working long hours to provide well for their families. Others, though, would be fine with satisficing, instead of maximizing, their careers, would like to better support their partner’s ambitions, or wish they could spend more time with their children.
So what’s stopping them from doing these things? Women are.
Evidence suggests that women, as much as men, persist in beliefs that being a “real man” means being a high earner with a high-status career and big goals. Even as women’s own salaries and ambitions increase, they continue to want partners who exceed them on these dimensions. This isn’t possibly sustainable.
Further, men who do make choices to lean out of their careers – for example, by pitching in more at home; taking work leave for a new child, or a sick one; or being a stay-at-home-dad – are penalized for these decisions by women and men alike.
The paradox here is that while few women (or men) would tolerate someone telling them they can’t do what a man does (like play sports or run for office), women can be just as guilty as men of enforcing rules about what men can and can’t do.
This takes a clear toll on men. Men’s unemployment, but not women’s, increases the likelihood that a couple will divorce. Men who are working but earn less than their wives report poorer physical health and are even more likely to use erectile dysfunction medication. Some of this comes from the pressure men put on themselves, but it also comes from their female partners and other people in their lives.
It’s time to let men off the hook.
As long as women refuse to date men who work part-time, or wives complain when their husbands don’t put themselves up for promotion, or a mother-in-law raises her eyebrows when a new dad takes parental leave, gender parity will elude us. We all need to embrace partnerships that balance leaning in with leaning out – even if it’s the man who’s doing it.
I’m not advocating for slacking, or for not working because it feels like it’s too much work. Certainly, every able adult should contribute to the household, whether by bringing in pay, doing chores, or caring for children and elders. But if a couple agrees that at this moment it makes sense for her to pursue the money and him to work part time, everyone needs to support that. The husband. The wife. Her dad. His mom. Her friends.
Allowing families the division of labor that makes sense for them is the necessary next step. It’s necessary for achieving gender equality, but also for a world in which true self-determination is equally possible for women and men. Now that’s a badge I’d like to earn.
This is an evidence-based blog. Check out the sources below for more information, and to form your own opinion. Sources behind paywalls may be accessible via Internet search or by directly emailing an author.
References
Berdahl, J. L., & Moon, S. H. (2013). Workplace mistreatment of middle class workers based on sex, parenthood, and caregiving. Journal of Social Issues, 69(2), 341-366.
Brescoll, V. L., & Uhlmann, E. L. (2005). Attitudes toward traditional and nontraditional parents. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 436-445.
Butler, A. B., & Skattebo, A. (2004). What is acceptable for women may not be for men: The effect of family conflicts with work on job-performance ratings. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 553-564.
Killewald, A. (2016). Money, work, and marital stability: Assessing change in the gendered determinants of divorce. American Sociological Review, 81(4), 696-719.
Pierce, L., Dahl, M. S., & Nielsen, J. (2013). In sickness and in wealth: Psychological and social costs of income comparison in marriage. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(3), 359-374.
Rudman, L. A., & Mescher, K. (2013). Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma? Journal of Social Issues, 69(2), 322-340.
Springer, K. W. (2010). Economic dependence in marriage and husbands’ midlife health. Gender & Society, 24(3), 378-401.
Tinsley, C. H., Howell, T. M., & Amanatullah, E. T. (2015). Who should bring home the bacon? How deterministic views of gender constrain spousal wage preferences. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 126, 37-48.
