Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Stay at Home Dads

Be honest. What do you think of when you hear "stay at home dad"? Like Dunham's article referred, do you find it synonymous with "couldn't find work"?

For our research paper, I read "Discrimination by Default: How Racism becomes Routine" and it briefly touched on the idea of women as caregivers. We assume women are naturally more affectionate, "motherly", and have certain domestic roles. Employers often only apply maternity leave to mothers, and fathers are not given the same workplace benefits a woman might receive. These stereotypes create a self-fulfilling cycle that force women to be the primary caregiver and possibly discourage willing fathers from taking on the role. This subtle discrimination is so ingrained that we may not even realize we are participating in it.

If you are interested in the life of a stay at home dad, check out rebeldad.com, one father's blog devoted to such topics. I found this particular post very interesting:
A 2005 Gannon University study, for example, found that the most popular child-rearing books used mother twice as often as father when referring to parenting in general. According to the study, even when the authors used gender-neutral language, it was usually clear that they were speaking to mothers. Why else would they suggest parental stress-management techniques that included "getting one's nails done" and "talking with a girlfriend"?

Clearly, even the people who *should* be more conscious of child rearing issues still have a bias towards women as caregivers.

So what are your opinions on the legal system or the attitudes of employers? Clearly we still live in a society that involves dad "bringing home the bacon" and mom barefoot and pregnant.
How were you raised? Do you think it was an equal parternship or more your mother/father doing the work?
Is it just the legal system that is at fault or do you feel there are deeper roots to this problem?
What ideas do you have to help rectify this gender-biased thinking?

2 Comments:

Blogger Nick Hursh said...

I think that society is continuing to change in its perceptions of parents. My parents both have worked throughout my life, and I have always looked at that as the typical family. You see it more and more with both parents wanting to work, not necessarily for financial reasons, but possibly changing life aspirations. Women continue to become more independent and remain longer in the workforce than in the past. However, I still believe that we are far from considering it a normality for dads to stay at home with the kids.

10:06 PM  
Blogger Sara said...

I think that the problems regarding discrimination against stay at home dads are based in a deeper social problem. Whether or not people want to admit it, we still live in a society where women are expected to take care of the "domestic" tasks. When a husband and wife both work, the wife is almost always expected to add on the extra duty of caring for the children. While maternity leave is obviously more necessary for women because they go through the actual physical process of birth, I think that laws should allow either the mother or the father to take paternity leave to care for an infant. It is common in many European countries for fathers to take paternity leaves, but in America it's almost unheard of. In a country that claims to put "family values" high on their list of priorities, it makes me question their sincerity.

7:35 PM  

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