Again, this choice of wording begs the question…is home care part of both adults’ responsibilities or is the man “helping” the woman? With my husband, I was kinda like, look. There are things that need to be done around the house (and later with the kid). Neither of us want to do them but they have to be done. So what is our strategy going to be? And if you have any idea that it will fall on my shoulders because I have the XX chromosomes, I suggest you think again, since there is nothing in those chromosomes that make me have any affinity for home care.

So I didn’t approach it as if I needed his help. (Because that would make the primary responsibility mine.) I approached it as if this was a problem we had to solve together. And if it required complicated charts and schedules, then so be it, because if I decided instead to own the responsibility, then there would be no way to later attempt to share said responsibility.

Now had he said that he didn’t plan to do anything in the house, I would ask (and ask and ask and go to couple’s therapy and keep asking) what his plan would then be for completing his half of the household responsibilities?

Perhaps if we changed our language, our attitudes and actions would change? Is that what you find problematic? Totally agree. I was thinking that you were talking about policies. Same for programs for the poor; it’s not that the programs aren’t available to men, but we are less likely to talk about a dad needed such programs to care for his family.

This is exactly what I’m getting at. By making the word “parent” or “family” generally equivalent to “mom” we do grave disservice to all of us, both men and women. Attitudes will not start to shift until we begin to frame the dialogue in different language and emotionally give either gender the same access to family choices rather than saying moms are entitled to protections and leaving out fathers.

I’m a big fan of the Equally Shared Parenting site. I think it is eye opening for many couples. Thanks for the dialogue!

Great point! But there are those situations where the men simply do not help out.

Getting divorced certainly eliminated my “…and I want you to do it the way I would do it” blues. Being on his own with the kids meant my ex had the freedom to do things his way…and it also required him to step up in ways he would not when we were married.

**So my question is why is there no feminist advocacy for equally shared parenting and home care?**

I believe there is. I believe it happens in homes, on a micro level, and in women encouraging other women in this direction. I don’t know what it would look like on a macro level. Let’s find out!

I Googled:

feminist parenting shared division of labor

…and here’s some of what I found:

http://divisionoflabor.blogspot.com/2008/08/one-more-reason-people-think-unequal.html

http://divisionoflabor.blogspot.com/2008/08/feminist-motherhood.html

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/workingparents/blog/archives/2007/04/the_elusive_505.html

http://equallysharedparenting.com/blogger.html

Here’s an excerpt from http://family.jrank.org/pages/408/Division-Labor-Contemporary-Divisions-Labor.html which points to the existence of feminist critique of the status quo division of labor:

“However, feminist critiques claim that these theories [that women are predisposed to housework and childcare] have flawed logic and methods, and cite historical and cross-cultural variation to show that divisions of labor are socially constructed (Thorne and Yalom 1992); only women can bear and nurse children, but the gender of the people who cook or clean is neither fixed nor preordained.”

Thorne, B., with Yalom, M. (1992). Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. New York: Longman.

Again, I think the issue is that there are a diversity of voices that call themselves “feminist”. Some more marginalized or mainstream than others.

**Like parenting leave. If a man wanted to take leave and be the primary caregiver for 6 months, he too would need similar protections for his job. So it is more about the leave itself and the employer’s response to it than the gender of the parent taking the leave, right?**

Yes, and FMLA isn’t gender-specific. How people talk about the issues (as you say, semantics), may be gender-specific, but the policies are not. Perhaps if we changed our language, our attitudes and actions would change? Is that what you find problematic? Totally agree. I was thinking that you were talking about policies. Same for programs for the poor; it’s not that the programs aren’t available to men, but we are less likely to talk about a dad needed such programs to care for his family.

My fiance has 50-50 custody of his daughters. His employer has given him leeway and he’s enjoyed job protections of the type that are typically associated with what women need in terms of child-care issues and such. I read somewhere that men have a harder time than women do asking for and or being granted the protections that are legally available to them when it comes to family leave and flexibility.
Deesha´s last blog ..“When Do You Introduce Your Kids to ‘The Next’?”

Thanks for commenting.

My understanding is that when “women groups” advocate for “working moms”, for example, they are functioning from the position that by and large it’s women that are pulling second shift.

Now here is my question. Why is it that women are pulling second shift? From my egalitarian post, what I see are women who seem to claim the home and children as their domain, in addition to their jobs/careers that they have outside the home. They say that they would prefer a more egalitarian distribution of household and parenting responsibilities, yet if the father doesn’t dress the kid to Mom’s standards, she’s not happy. Or if the dishwasher is loaded the “wrong” way, or some other transgression. So what I get from this is that the mother doesn’t really want equally shared parenting/home care. She wants the father to manage home and kids to her specs. And if that does not happen, then she ends up doing the majority (if not all) of the home care.

So my question is why is there no feminist advocacy for equally shared parenting and home care? There is nothing about having two XX chromosomes that makes us better at cleaning toilets. Yet it seems that the goal of the working mom agenda is to advocate for more flexibility for the mother, but nothing for the father. That jangles my equality sense (well I don’t have spidey senses, do I?)

In addition, when I spoke of the agenda for the poor, it is rare that I’ve heard people speak of putting supports in place so that fathers can get housing, job training, and support for his family? When I’ve heard people speak, it is near uniformly about mothers. And yes, I know that the single-female-headed households are the vast majority of AFDC households, yet, even if it is only our semantics, the focus on women/mothers makes parenting issues about gender when in my Bizzaro World, parenting should be about parents and not about gender.

Like parenting leave. If a man wanted to take leave and be the primary caregiver for 6 months, he too would need similar protections for his job. So it is more about the leave itself and the employer’s response to it than the gender of the parent taking the leave, right?

I also believe it’s feminist to want to tell her to grow a spine.

But by the time you’re old like me, you might just want to smack her!

Thanks for your thoughts!

Thanks for your comment. But I think I need to be a little more clear what I mean by equal. In my mind, equal doesn’t mean that we both choose to act or react the same way. Instead, I’m saying that we open the entire gamut of behaviors, emotions, choices, and responses for people of either sex to choose from. No more men don’t cry and women shouldn’t speak up or any other gendered crap. It goes without saying we will all not react the same way…put 10 people in a room and the responses will differ regardless of gender. I’m just saying that we need to get rid of the gender coloring that gets applied.

If a male doesn’t get so much gender socialization to stuff everything inside and a female the socialization to focus on harmony over standing up for herself, maybe the range of who we allow ourselves to be would be infinitely greater.

I was quite a bit older (40ish) before I realized I had a backbone and wouldn’t let people take advantage of my kindnesses.

If nothing else, this should teach her that you don’t do business with friends….AND you get at least 1/2 payment up front, with a signed agreement to receive the other 1/2 before the photos are released. If she plans on doing this as a money making business, she needs to have the courage to set the rules.

I’m not aware of any of the kinds of special programs you mention being “mom”-specific. Not saying they don’t exist, but I’m just not aware.

My understanding is that when “women groups” advocate for “working moms”, for example, they are functioning from the position that by and large it’s women that are pulling second shift.

As for the poor, if I’m not mistake, most poor children live in single-female-headed households, and this contributions to the “face” of the poor being that of a mother.

And yet, when it comes to policy, things like Family Medical Leave and Aid to Families with Dependent Children aren’t gender specific and neither are the public programs that come to mind that serve the poor.

I think it’s fine to advocate and agitate and congregate as women, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the same thing as asking for gender-specific policies and entitlement programs.

That said, if there are gender-specific programs, I don’t think they necessarily undermine demand for equal treatment; it could be that the programs are intended to provide relief in areas where women are represented in greater numbers than men. For example, women need job protection from employers who might penalize them for taking maternity leave–men don’t have to worry about this. And yet, again, even the FMLA isn’t gender specific.

**As a woman, I’m supposed to be sympathetic and understanding about this type of thing, but my brain really wants me to say, no one needs to give you permission to stand up for yourself, no matter what genitalia you wear!**

I don’t believe you are supposed to be any more sympathetic and understanding about this just because you’re a woman. I don’t see feminism and egalitarianism are hopelessly incompatible, mostly because I believe both are defined in myriad different ways by those who embrace them.

I would say that it *is* feminist to understand the forces (e.g., gendered socialization) that contribute to the woman’s hesitation to claim her rightful compensation, *and* to want to combat those forces.

I also believe it’s feminist to want to tell her to grow a spine.

That’s MY very broad, very loving definition of feminism.
Deesha´s last blog ..“When Do You Introduce Your Kids to ‘The Next’?”

I felt a surge of appreciation when I read this: “We’re all just people with different genitalia and physical attributes, but the who of who we are isn’t and shouldn’t be limited by our sociological gender roles. Yet approaching life this way as a woman is a difficult enterprise when our society remains entrenched in these male/female boxes. ”

This surge is partially because I understood what you meant and thought about this recent New York Times article that stated that women who have a chronic illnesses are more likely to be divorced than men with chronic illnesses. What was even more interesting than the article were the responses to it in the comments section.

Let me see if I can find it. Here it is:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/

I think the question isn’t whether women are equal, but if men and women respond equally to the same thing across the board, and if there are cases where someone plain doesn’t want to be equal in actions…meaning a husband who may have been nursed during a (serious or mild) illness by his wife but doesn’t want to deal with or handle her care when she’s sick with cancer.

Some people are resistant to stepping outside of gender roles because they plain dont want to or don’t want the responsibility of failure if they try it and it doesn’t work out the first time.

A woman who asks for permission to speak up doesn’t want to own responsibillity for speaking up because she’s scared of the possible consequences/results. . . but you know that with the woman not wanting to be seen negatively for being a good businesswoman and expecting to be treated with respect in regards to her being compensated for services provided.