Last week we examined several famous women in science. While discussing Emmy Noether, a mathematical physicist, one of my classmates remarked that perhaps she was able to be so successful because she had special insight into the subject as a woman. When this statement was made there was an air of general agreement in the room - perhaps her female brain DID give her an advantage in her male dominated field. Yet one student made a counter point: what if he had instead suggested that a male scientist had some sort of advantage in his field due to special properties in the male brain? I imagine this would be taken as offensive by many today.
This begs the question, in the process of shedding old social norms for women, do we also need to do the same for men? A TED talk by Tony Porter makes a call to men to do just this.
He calls the collective socialization of males, the "Man Box". Contained within this box are the often unspoken expectations which we hold to men. These expectations limit the emotions men feel they can express and force them to act out others that they may not otherwise. Porter gives several examples of instances in his personal life where he has been constrained by this Man Box. One example came from the death of his younger brother. After his family drove from the funeral, his father stayed behind in the car with him and began to cry. Of course, burying your son must be a traumatic and highly emotional experience for any father. Yet, Porter's father had not cried in front of anyone until that point in the car. His father would not let himself show what he perceived as weakness to any of the females in the family. Instead of accepting this showing of grief, his father apologized for this action and praised Porter for not letting himself cry. As a male, his father was constrained by his Man Box, where women were given freedom to express themselves.
Another example of this limitation comes to mind, the role of men in child rearing. The typical role of a male in a nuclear family was that of financial provider. This left care of the household and children to the female. As women have gained more opportunities, this role has shifted. More households today are dual income, indicating that both parents are now working and presumably also sharing care of the household. Yet, as we discussed in class, there still seems to be a social expectation for women to serve as the caretaker of the children. Obviously this restricts women, but does it not also rob men of the invaluable life experience of being highly involved in raising a child? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about one third of married fathers are a regular source of care for their children. The amount of fathers who serve as the primary source of care for their children lies below 1%. I do not believe men to be any less capable of caring for children than women, and I was unable to find any sound research to say otherwise. Why then aren't more men participating as actively as women when it comes to their very own children? I suspect that it has to do with lingering societal gender roles and, consequently, a Man Box which does not allow for men to experience caring for their children in the same way women do.
The feminist movement has come a long way in the last few centuries and its focus on women's rights should continue. However, if we are to truly build a society were its members are equal regardless of gender, we must reevaluate the social expectations we hold for BOTH women and men. We do not live in the same environments which formed these roles and it is detrimental to individuals of all genders to place their behavior in a metaphorical box.
(Note: I was unable to access the primary U.S. Census Bureau data due to the government shut down and took my data from a secondary source: National At-Home Dad Network)
We absolutely need to rebuild social norms for men. Speaking as a woman, I was awakened to a few of the dimensions of men's social norms when I was standing in a bookstore, flipping through one of these books on how women can relate to men and vice versa, Mars/Venus yadda ya. They kept emphasizing the job thing. Job, job, job, was the advice to women, you gotta understand that the job, and ability to provide, is the totally fundamental thing for men like your basic relationships are for you (a woman.) Huh, I thought. I started asking men about it: hippies, my father's generation, my family members, friends. The answer was universal; yeah, if you don't have a job, you're not a real man. Wow, that concept was so foreign to me, to base my identity and self esteem to such a fundamental degree on my ability to work and provide. I started wondering what else goes into men's social upbringing, and realized that you don't need to get on a plane to explore extremely foreign and exotic cultures; men and women are exotic foreign cultures to each other right under our noses.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, patriarchal gender roles are constraining everyone in our society right now. When it comes to your argument about child-raising, I think it's important to realize that there are several institutional barriers to having men take an equal role. Maternity leave is pretty much universally available (in developed countries), but paternity leave is often nonexistent or much less generous. Why don't we have equal amounts of leave for both parents, and just have mothers use extra medical leave if they need it due to the demands of pregnancy?
ReplyDeleteI think the real issue is that having children is a huge time investment, and taking a significant amount of leave has a negative impact on your career. Obviously, people can have both a career and children, but it's silly to say that having children will have no impact on your career. As Maija said, employment and career success is a huge part of the male identity right now, due to our long history of them being the sole providers. It's going to be impossible to get equal child-raising benefits in the workplace while this is still the general mentality: I think at this point, even if men had lots of paternity leave available, they still wouldn't take it in a lot of cases. Many people I've asked would choose instead to focus on advancing their careers in order to provide better lives to their families. It's more socially acceptable for women to give up a career for their children, and I think that's a huge part of why we don't see as many women now in high-level positions in the workplace. If it were socially acceptable for men to do the same, I think we'd start seeing a lot more equal numbers.
I'd love to hear from anyone who actually has children about this issue!
Great thoughts, Allie! You said, "Many people I've asked would choose instead to focus on advancing their careers in order to provide better lives to their families." This statement seems like a paradox to me because it considers the monetary necessity of raising a family; yet providing better lives for one's family also involves parental interaction such as taking the kids to their soccer games, playing with them in the park, or eating together. In the case of males, you are correct in saying that children versus career is almost nonexistent since it is the female who is expected to do the child-rearing and to give quality time to the children while the male pursues a career.
DeleteSince our social norms are still oriented towards supporting a man's career while the woman takes care of children and since changes are slow in coming, perhaps for women to have a greater presence in STEM fields and higher education they should think about choosing a spouse who has a career allowing for her to pursue her own career. Perhaps Marie Curie was successful in her career while having children because her husband was also a scientist with whom she worked on a daily basis and with whom she could share research duties as well as childcare duties. Women should not have to wait for better paternity leave policies or for the general mentality to change before they can pursue high-level positions in their careers.