Monday
May182009
Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood
Monday, May 18, 2009
On May 17, I participated in the Fem 2.0 chat on twitter. The topic of discussion was mommies and feminism. We talked about a lot of things, but one thing I said towards the end of the chat seemed to resonate with a lot of people. I also think it is an important point, so I thought I'd turn it into a post and explain more than I could in the 140 character limit. Here is what I said:
I find that a lot of the focus in the feminist mothering movement is on ensuring the rights of mothers and furthering the position of mothers in society. But what is the role for the men in that equation?
The problem with feminist mothering is that it either pushes for women to be freed from the shackles of motherhood (by making it easier for them to put their kids into day care) or it pushes for concessions in the workplace for women (more maternity leave, more sick leave, breaks and accommodations to pump breastmilk at work, etc.).
While I don't think there is anything wrong with pushing for those things, I think we need to push for something more, something different.
We need to push for a society that values family and parenthood. One that recognizes that role that parents play in raising the next generation. One that recognizes that fathers, like mothers, may need to strike a balance between their career and their family life. One where women don't feel that they have to be an equally uninvolved parent in order to reach their goals, but where they can ask their partner to step up too.
This isn't happening right now.
I think we need to fight for men and society to recognize the importance of equally shared parenting in realizing feminist goals. Women cannot achieve equality until men take on their share of the responsibility for raising a family. Women will continue to be discriminated against in the workplace when they need to care for their families until men start taking on their share of that burden.
I think we need a society that values parenthood, not just motherhood. Otherwise it will always be about making concessions for women.
I find that a lot of the focus in the feminist mothering movement is on ensuring the rights of mothers and furthering the position of mothers in society. But what is the role for the men in that equation?
The problem with feminist mothering is that it either pushes for women to be freed from the shackles of motherhood (by making it easier for them to put their kids into day care) or it pushes for concessions in the workplace for women (more maternity leave, more sick leave, breaks and accommodations to pump breastmilk at work, etc.).
While I don't think there is anything wrong with pushing for those things, I think we need to push for something more, something different.
We need to push for a society that values family and parenthood. One that recognizes that role that parents play in raising the next generation. One that recognizes that fathers, like mothers, may need to strike a balance between their career and their family life. One where women don't feel that they have to be an equally uninvolved parent in order to reach their goals, but where they can ask their partner to step up too.
This isn't happening right now.
- In a lot of jurisdictions (like Canada), men have the opportunity to share parental leave with their partners, but not many of them do and when they do share that leave it is often frowned upon in their workplace. Quebec has probably had one of the greatest success rates in this area, with 1 out of 2 men taking advantage of some of the parental leave available to them.
- When a child is sick, it is almost always the mother that takes time off of work.
- If the baby sitter flakes out, it is the mom that is left scrambling.
- Men seem to have a harder time saying "I'm sorry, I can't stay late, I need to be home for dinner with my kids" than their wives would.
- I sometimes hear men saying that they can't do XYZ because they have to babysit their kids. Since when are fathers babysitters?
I think we need to fight for men and society to recognize the importance of equally shared parenting in realizing feminist goals. Women cannot achieve equality until men take on their share of the responsibility for raising a family. Women will continue to be discriminated against in the workplace when they need to care for their families until men start taking on their share of that burden.
Reader Comments (46)
I'm thankful that here in Canada, both women and men are allowed such a great amount of time off after a baby is born. I only took 6 months when my first baby was born, because my job was not secure; it was very tough. With our second baby, I took the full year, and my husband took time off as well. After he got laid off from Dell, we decided it was in our children's best interest for him to stay home. He, along with my mom, mother-in-law and grandmother take care of our children. It's a wonderful arrangement, and the children and very happy and very loved. It makes going to work for me so much easier. My husband does the cooking, I clean, we both raise our children together. I'm thankful for that.
I think the conversation will start with valuing motherhood, after all it is often thankless job done for free. There is no realized monetary value attached to motherhood as Im sure most SAHMs will tell you. This is why it's often frowned upon my outsiders questioning the decision (albeit i have some issues within myself). I think once we can establish motherhood as a natural part of life and not something employers and others have to make concessions for then we can bring men into the equation. Yours is a tall task, one that beckons change that has it's roots in centuries and for sure, generations to come around the issue of sexual equality.
Once we start there, then the men can join in LOL
While working as a director of a childcare center that was serving in large part the working poor, I saw too often how parenthood is not supported especially in lower paying jobs. Employers don't have to respect their employees families when there are people lined up for those jobs. Many of the children in my center were in single parent families , and I had my fair share of single dads. They faced the same injustices - scrambling to find someone to watch their child who was running a fever and couldn't stay in our care. I can't tell you how many times I held a sick child on my lap in my office for hours because their parents coming was NOT an option.
Often they were unable to do preventative health care for their kids because they had no time off to take their children to well visits, instead the ER was their healthcare and only used in emergencies.
If we value parents more in the workplace instead of seeing them as a liability all children will be better off. In turn I think that if parenthood is valued more you would have more women who have chosen to stay home returning to the workplace while raising young kids. I know that if it were more family friendly I would be more likely work out of the house, but as it is now I am choosing to stay home .
I have to agree. I talk sometimes with my brother-in-law, who is a stay at home dad. He has definitely found that being a dad makes him less welcome when he takes his daughter to the playground and other places.
I loved it when I first read about the Canadian model of having leave available to both parents. It's logical.
Yes, it is going to take time to get people to accept fathers as having just as much responsibility in parenting as mothers. I suspect it may actually help motherhood gain more respect too. Sometimes it's easier to get the concessions if both men and women need them. Otherwise it's just women "asking for special treatment". Make it the duty of both parents and asking for time off won't seem so much like special treatment.
At my job, I get 3 "Personal Days" off per year and 10 sick days (plus some vacation days). If one of my children is sick and I need to attend to him, I can't use a sick day. Meanwhile, I rarely get sick myself, so my sick days accumulate. I could take a month off with my accumulated sick time (if it weren't for a rule limiting me to taking 12 sick days off per year).
When my wife was working, our son was in daycare and was definitely sick more than 3 times per year. Unfortunately, every sickness we were faced with a decision as to whose job should be put in jeopardy by taking a day off. Sadly, my wife's job (private school teacher) provided less income and thus suffered more. (She eventually decided to become a stay-at-home mom partially because daycare+extended care costs would eat up almost all of her salary.)
Ideally, we shouldn't have had to choose. I should have been able to use my sick days (or some other time off) to take care of my sick children.
In our house, everything is shared equally - parenting and household duties included. That is my brand of feminism (which is also my husband's brand.) As a feminist, I also speak out for Dad's rights too because I think the only way to have equality is if both mother and father are seen as equal care givers in the house.
When a kid is sick, it's not MY job necessarily to take off work. The husband and I share that responsibility. When a diaper needs changing, it's always rock/paper/scissors - not just automatically MY job. In fact, my husband gets pretty judgmental of the dads he knows of who don't participate in the child-rearing, or those who see it as "woman's work." He thinks those dads are giving dads like him a bad name. And - He feels sorry for the kids.
We even share breastfeeding as much as humanly possible. When baby wakes up, it's husband's job to go get him and put him back to bed when we're done. And he's responsible for everything bottle-related. He prepares my bottles and horns for work in the morning, and sets up the pump when I need to pump at night. Anything he can take care of, he does, because he feels that biologically speaking it's the least he can do.
So, we're doing what we can to change the stereotype. Luckily we know a lot of parents who have a similar dynamic to ours.
Ugg I hate that 'babysitting' line that fathers suposedly do. My husband never calls it that but others often comment to me "Is your husband home babysitting" I always reply "No, he is at home Fathering his own children" Drives me crazy, and I totally agree with you.
(even coming from someone with a deadbeat dad myself)
I agree with you completely, Annie, and am always saying very similar things when the discussion comes up. In fact, I just wrote about this very subject this morning too, after watching a documentary on the BBC last night called "The Trouble With Working Women." My thoughts on it are here http://noblesavage.me.uk/2009/05/19/the-trouble-with-working-women/
Parenting has GOT to be treated as a normal thing that normal employees -- male or female -- normally do at some point or another in their careers. Otherwise, parenting and productivity in the public economy will never peacefully co-exist. The fact that I make more money than my husband makes it easier for him to tell his employer that he has to leave at exactly the same time every single day to pick up his kids -- no matter what. As another person pointed out, salary inequity is a big factor in parenting inequity... but it's a chicken-and-egg problem, and because of that, you have to address the problem holistically. Cheerleading for the parental rights of fathers will no doubt improve the economic and social condition of mothers, by necessity. That's why your comment really resonated with me!
I agree with this 100%. These are similar reasons to why I hate the label "Mr. Mom", as though part of the definition of "mom" or "mother" is "being home with kids". I take the word "mom" simply as vocabulary stating that I am the female parent in the household with my son.
When my husband first became a SAHD, people kept asking him, "Man, are you totally bored yet? Do you just sit around all day and do nothing?" No one asked me that when I was home on maternity leave right after my son was born. At the same time, they asked me, "When will you quit your job? I'm sure that you'd rather be home."
I made it very clear to my husband that I was not to be the one scrambling to find a babysitter or picking up my son from school when he's sick. And then we had kids. Whether anyone else around us will ever understand that arrangement...I seriously doubt it.
Brosti - thank you for this
" Cheerleading for the parental rights of fathers will no doubt improve the economic and social condition of mothers, by necessity."
Last night I was trying to find the words to explain this and you did it perfectly!
@TheFeministBreeder,
I agree with you about sharing responsibilities. Growing up, I saw my stay-at-home mother busting her rear to keep the house clean, the laundry done, make dinner, etc. My father would then come home, plop his rear in front of the TV and jokingly suggest that my mother just sat around eating bon-bons all day.
There's definitely no changing my father's attitude. Trust me, I've tried. He's way too stubborn and set in his ways. However, I've decided to make my father an example to live by: An example of what *NOT* to do.
My usual routine when I come home from work is to get changed out of my suit, change a diaper (if one needs changing), prepare dinner, help get the kids into bed, and clean up from dinner. I do nearly all of the cooking, my wife handles the laundry and the bill paying. (The latter mainly because when I was responsible for it, we missed some payments. She's just better organized than I am.) Other jobs are split as 50-50 as possible.
If one of us isn't feeling well, the other steps in to take their place. In my parents' house, if my mother isn't feeling well, dinner is ordered out and laundry goes undone. (Or else my mother does it while feeling awful.)
I would actually feel like less of a member of the family if I got home from work, plopped my rear on the couch, and asked my wife when dinner was going to be ready. I prefer to be an active participant in our household affairs and not just "the guy that brings in a paycheck."
Reading over my previous post, and lest anyone misunderstand, my wife and I discussed the "sick child" situation when she was working and she agreed with taking more time off. In fact, her work (an all-girl's Catholic school) was very supportive of family life. If she needed any time off for sick kids, they were willing to bend over backwards for her. Contrast this to my work which had a "discussion" with me after I took off two sick days over the course of a few months to take care of my sick son. (I usually take 4 or 5 sick days per year... You think they could spare another 2 or 3 for son-sicknesses.)
When we "ran the numbers" about my wife staying at home, I told her that it was her career that she was deciding to put on hold and so it was (in the end) her decision. I would support her either way. She decided that staying at home and seeing our little guy grow for a year or two was more important than going to work for a year or two.
Were our salary situations reversed (I just happen to be in a field with a higher salary than private school teachers), I could have easily become a stay-at-home dad. I wouldn't have had a problem with that.
It's absolutely frustrating that men and their work are higher status-bearing than women and theirs. I think the feminist movement http://thisisworthwhile.blogspot.com/2009/04/sweaty-hamster.html" rel="nofollow">forgot something extremely important when they were pushing for equal working and civil rights with men: equal parenting rights for fathers and an elevated status for care giving in general.
Right now, all we care about are bottom lines, when really, we should be most focused on our children. It's such a "mommy" thing to say, but it's true. Healthy, happy, loved, safe, nurtured kids tend to grow up to be adults who are plugged in to their society. There's got to be a shift and I think it's starting now.
I blogged about my thoughts on this, too, and linked to it above.
Interesting post. Thanks for sharing it http://hintcafe.com" rel="nofollow">:)
Hey, North America, cut yourself some slack. Everything is relative. I come from a very "traditional" Russian culture, and I think that the Western societies are definitely ahead in equal distribution of duties. My husband who is German is a SAHD while I work full time, and I consider us equal partners. My father still can't fathom how it is possible that my DH put his career on hold to raise our daughter. Fortunately, my DH is not alone. I think that we will not move to the "parenthood" society overnight, but I think that the move is actually happening. One encouraging fact is that even mainstream media stop treating SAHDs as "curious freaks of nature". I only wish some stay-at-home-moms I know were as accepting - it's still a struggle for my DH to be included in group playdates and such.
I think men need to become more comfortable about been and been seen as the the primary caregiver before we will see more men take on equal roles in parenting. My husband stayed home with our daughter for a year between my maternity leave with her ending and my next leave with our son starting. He loved it! He was often the only guy, but even when there were other men around he usually ended up hanging out with other moms. I think that it helped that he cared more about his relationship with our daughter than he cared about what other people thought of him.
Well said. Instead of Feminist Mothering Movement how 'bout the Parenting Movement ;). Now there's a cause I'd take up!
My husband and I hate it when we hear of a dad "babysitting"!
@TheFeministBreeder: I love the way the two of you share feeding. After all, equal doesn't have to mean 'exactly the same'. It can also mean each person takes on different responsibilities, but the responsibilities as a whole are shared.
Great post.
I find my husband is more feminist in his thinking half the time than I am..he constantly thinks about how his parents were vs him and wants his son and daughter(s) to be powerful.
Parenting from whatever gender is the key..I totally agree.
I'm not sure where on the spectrum I sit regarding feminism, but I will agree with you 100% that parenting is shared, and equal consideration needs to be given to dads. I am actually writing a post about co-parenting and dads in honour of my husband.
I am a SAHM (by choice) and he is currently on 9 months of parental leave from work. He took the maximum time he could. Even when he went to do paperwork with HR, it was quite the process because very few men do it. He would do it full time if he could trust me (Loukia, my hubby would be so jealous of yours but I'm not going back to work ;)
Oh, and we shudder at 'babysitting'...
However, my husband will be the first to admit that at times, he knows darn well our kids only want me (and it has nothing to do with me nursing, although, sure, if they are hungry, guess what they want?) The thing that he always says is that he's not offended or insulted by that, it's just the way things are. But he does love it when they want to fall asleep with only daddy at times...;)
Great post.
Thank you for posting this. You have offered me food for thought. I must admit, off the top, that I whole-heartedly agree that fathers (and ALL non-birth parents) need to be offered and willing to take on a more decisive role in parenting their children. In fact I make it well-known to the partners and the grandparents of the couples I meet and work with that when mom is not immediately available to have baby skin-to-skin in (a minimum of) the first 72 hours, then the other parent needs to take on that role. Babies NEED to transition to life outside of the womb by being kept skin-to-skin with a parent.
That said, I think there needs to be a stronger value placed (ALSO) on the need for a baby to have his/her needs met as rapidly as is physically possible in the first several months without worry about "spoiling" the infant. I truly believe that, in those first several months, the very best person to fill this role is the mother.
I absolutely agree that we need a society which values BOTH parents but I think the distinction between the roles the two people can play (especially since I have yet to meet a man who is willing to lactate - even though they ALL have the physiologic ability to be able to do so) are essential to remember too.
As I read your post again (for about the fifth time) I recognize that you don't seem to be suggesting that "dads need to be just like moms." I guess I just spend SO much time working against the stream of consciousness regarding mother/baby separation and keeping babies from becoming "too dependent" on mom that I am afraid of taking the light off that "cause."
Perhaps I don't see it all the same because I have been blessed, from the moment my children were born, with a partner who has ALWAYS helped co-parent. He feels his role is as big as mine is and just assumes he will co-care for our children. He and I have always arranged our work schedules to allow for one of us to be with our children 99% of the time which has meant he has solo-parented almost as often as I have. All of our very closest friends co-parent in much the same way we do. I forget that not every family works that same way ours does.
Your article is amazing. It has had my mind racing for two days! Thanks again for posting it!
Great article. I agree w/Natalie in that the movement is already happening. My husband and I share equally in the care, love, and general raising of our kids. We share equally the running of the house as well and a lot of our friends have the same dynamic.
What is frustrating to me is my own family who can not understand our family set-up. I suspect my grandmother thinks I am a poor wife because husband has to "do so much" .
Canada certainly has parental leave right and it truely saddens me that the US doesn't value family more.
I agree that we need to focus on parenthood, instead of motherhood or fatherhood specifically. My husband is a stay at home dad, and we are both constantly amazed at how much we both feel pressure from the "system". My role as a working mother is not always respected, and my husband's role as primary caregiver is just plain out of place. I think that these outside pressures are a large part of the reason that we sometimes struggle with the roles that we have chosen.
I absolutely agree. I have a wonderful husband who is also a wonderful father, in some areas he does more parenting than I do! I'd say we're equal but different. I have no complaints, and I know he adores being a dad and treasures his time with our boys. He also has great respect for the mother-baby bond. He is a wonderful role model.
BUT it is definitely harder for him to leave work on time, etc. He DOES make more than I do, so it would make more sense for me to stay at home if we we going that route. It WOULD have been frowned on had he taken parental leave, so I took it all. I have seen it many times with other men, even seen some get laid off after returning (when it was a choice between him and another, childless man...) I absolutely agree this society should be more parent- and family-friendly, not just mother-friendly.
Oh, and my mother was a SAHM but the first to drill into me that dads were NOT "babysitters" (whenever someone asked her if my dad was babysitting that day!)
I completely agree with this way of thinking - about parenthood in general and not separating Moms from Dads. I made sure when I created my company that I had the name "parenting" in the title for this very reason.
Thanks for the discussion. I think it's very important for our sons and daughters to be able to recognize both parents for the roles they play.
Irrational pride and its companion, irrational sanctimony, will give way to a view of parenthood that only attaches biological import to genuine biological differences and does not extrapolate from genuine differences to irrelevant roles.
Equal but different - thanks for that comment, Andrea. Back when i had a job and a SAHM partner, i realized one day that she always shlepped the kids with her to go shopping or to the doctor, whereas i would do those things alone. That was my first admission of our inequality, and the first thing i changed. From there, I found more and more ways that I could fully step up to my role as a parent, equally responsible for the workload even if it was unequally distributed (by mutual agreement.)
As I tried to step up my involvement, I did face barriers from my employer. Skipping a meeting to take a child to the doctor, scheduling Wednesday afternoons off to take them to circus camp - I ended up doing these things surreptitiously rather than being open about my priorities.
These days, as the Play-at-Home Dad, I am amused by my own occasional resentment of my wife's freedom to focus on her work while I'm balancing so many balls - the same grievances she used to bring up. Then I smile when she brings up my favourite old lament that she's missing out on the playdates and park walks.
Whichever foot the shoe is on, as long as we're walking together we'll make it fit all right.
I'm an egalitarian, in practical contexts. Which is to say respect, rights, pay, etc. should be equal. I'm not educated enough in the area of feminism to understand why the fight to be equal requires the promotion of one side over the other to accomplish that goal, however I'm sure someone will explain it to me.
When required to consider the consequences or symptoms of any problem I've always found it helpful to identify and understand the players, and their evolutionary roots. Here are some out loud thoughts that I'm sure will make some upset, yet possibly have some secret acknowledgments as well, as so many topics are easier to hide behind what is popular or 'correct' that to voice and discuss openly.
Women are natural multi-taskers, although I cannot reference the studies, this is a biological fact. Also there are many studies looking at the hormonal protection mode of mother over children and 'instinct' that magically allows a woman to know a course of action to take. I find it interesting in many relationships that men are not 'allowed' to make the care decisions day to day, or on a specific event (child fall go boom) and that as with any activity, practice or lack thereof leads to a lack of knowledge in taking action at these times. My point is that there is an assumption (correct or not) that the mother knows best how to deliver care. Our society promotes men as being a physical force in the family for protection / breadwinning duties (it is unspoken, but immediately felt in a circle of men, where hierarchy is now determined by salary, replacing physical dominance of one another - I cannot explain it, but it is there) - finally some credence for men being loving and caring and able to laugh with the girls about sticking your finger in the back of a diaper and coming up 'successful' is accepted, but I have to tell you - men and women are prejudiced and discounting of men being adequate caregivers. The irony is (in my experience) when the source of that derision is from feminist sources. It's embarrassing, really. . especially when the only proper thing to do is to correct the prejudicial comment - because equality goes both ways. I don't accept comments from my caregiver (which stopped quickly) like "Daddy must have dressed her" if she doesn't match, when I spent 30 mins putting the right clothes on but wanting to allow my daughter her right of choice, to promote her in attempting to see value in what she wears, etc. etc.
Regarding workplace equality, you are bang on. Any business (I have owned my company for 13 years, and had 3 women employees of mid/late twenties age leave to raise their families. (God bless them, they are fabulous parents!) Here is something you may not know: EI dings us (employer) for women going on mat leave. Seriously. Then the tax system doesn't give credit for SAHM/D's - here is the crux of the problem: if you can't assign salary to a person, society doesn't recognize their accomplishments - which is bull. The ROOT of this problem is to give enough tax relief to a family to make it possible for one member to stay home. But there are inherent problems: people abuse systems like this. Society wants more workers in the workforce, our economy depends on everyone working for higher GDP. Businesses go out of business when they invest $10 000 of time and money training someone who leaves to raise a family and then is further penalized by EI. These are the realities folks. Employers "taking you aside" because you took an extra day off for your kid need to be reminded of your value. If you are not worth enough to them, find another job. Easier said than done? You don't value yourself enough then. You will realize at some point that employers need you too - and if you aren't abusing them by taking 20 sick days off, they will quickly get over their bullying and see that you need to take that time off - that you resent them when they stand between you and your family.
There are many elements here. They have to be addressed by communicating with each other - without fear of reprisal or being labeled. I'm sorry, but there are too many 'feminists' who have sullied an excellent original intention of equality by stomping on men instead of taking smart tactics (as mentioned above) of looking at how to fix the problem.
Just some ranting thoughts, sorry for taking up so much space.
[...] Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood posted at PhD in Parenting. [...]
Fantastic discussion here! Annie, thanks so much for letting me know about your post at Working Parents blog, and for linking to our website. It makes me so happy to read along - it is about time we stopped calling family issues 'mothers' issues' and included the other half of the equation. We gain so much more power in causes such as paid parental leave if we are all in it together!
All the best,
Amy
[...] recently, because I’m working backward in my Reader Starred folder), PhD in Parenting wrote Feminism, fathers, and valuing parenting: We need to push for a society that values family and parenthood. One that recognizes that role [...]
I completley agree with you, on many many levels. Parenting is called parenting for a reason. It involves not only a mother but a larger extended family and community . As a feminist, I am pro all things that make it easier for woman to breastfeed, return to work (if she wishes) and legislation that is pro-family in general. But, as any smart feminist would argue, the parenting role should not just be restricted to mothers and if society does so we oppress woman.
The old praise it takes a village to raise a child... still hold many truths, even in today's society. :)
[...] Dads are parents too: With the exception of one woman who mentioned that she worked in law enforcement and shared child care activities with her husband, there was no mention of these women’s spouses at all. Shouldn’t there have been just as many men in the audience defending their decision to go back to work or their decision to stay home? I think it is ridiculous that it is still a novelty for men to stay home and that our society still assumes that a working mom = kids in day care. Read more: Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood. [...]
[...] Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood, PhDinParenting discusses the need for society to recognise fathers as parents in the same way it [...]
I think feminism has different levels of practitioners. You have on one extreme the feminist that believe that equal rights are mandatory, and thats completely understandable. Men or women need to be treated equal under any circumstance. However, there are the feminist who believe that the fight continues, who preach equal rights, but really just take it 10 steps above and beyond the reality. Hardcore feminist who I believe want to make women the head of everything, and I dont think thats fair. When it comes to parenting, there has to be a level playing field. A parent who regards equal rights regardless of gender will be more successful than a hardcore one.
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I do nearly all of the cooking, my wife handles the laundry and the bill paying. Nice post btw
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My hudband and I are both military. I'm allowed 45 days maternity leave and he gets ten. When it comes to our daughters appointments I almost always attend them because his job is "more important"(according to his co-workers...we do the same exact thing. I get a lot of grief from my co-workers for having to take our daughter to the doctor or for even suggesting that I tend to her while she is ill. They even sent us both to the field together forcing us to decide between leaving her with her nanny for three months or one of us flying her to our parents house(which is what we did and in turn we missed her first birthday). Thank god I only have a year left and then I'm staying home/ continuing my doula certification. I was told "if the army wanted u to have kids..thet would have issued you them".......talk about an anti-parenting work enviroment.
[...] those questions sound ridiculous now that the roles are reversed? They probably do, because our society does assume that women will be the ones who sacrifice the most when children enter the p.... But in a society free of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity the questions shouldn't sound [...]
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[...] via Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood | PhD in Parenting Blog. [...]