Why men would benefit from having increased gender equality

I did end my former post about feminism and career choices by pointing out that in order to try and change our non-equal society, maybe it is not enough to adjust how we raise and educate girls ‘to take up more space and time and think about themselves’ but maybe we need to think about how we raise boys as being more considerate of others [you know, those traditional ‘female’ skills…].

It did occur to me as recent as a month ago when two male post docs in my department became dads for the first time. Let’s call them A and D for short. They looked upon their future roles as fathers from slightly different perspectives. A was a work the next day after his baby was delivered and has been in lab since… D looked at me with a little bit of nervousness when we talked about ‘what was going to happen after the baby arrived’ but said that he was going to take 2 weeks off [maximum to have here] and be at home. He further went on talking about how he would like to be there and raise his child and be an active part of the baby’s life. The same thing was what another friend post doc V did last year when he got a baby. His PI however was surprised and said [in a sniggering voice] “well, I wasn’t skipping work just because I had a new baby in the house”. I’m not sure how I would have responded to that so I am happy I didn’t stand in from of that PI…

Let’s just say that I think this illustrates one main problem men might have when trying to break the circle of being “a typical male”.

I furthermore attended a lecture a while back given by one of the Big professors in the field, he is now ‘semi’ retired but still haves a lab. He was asked what he would have done differently if he were to start his life all over again. His reply? (Well, it wasn’t all “I would have cleaned the house and made more washes of laundry” but still in the spirit of such…) “If it was something I would have liked to see my children grow up a little more. It was a stressful time, I had just gotten my PhD and started my tenure track research position and I just didn’t think about being home and being involved in the family. I guess my wife took a hefty load of it all as well as being one of my research techs in the lab – I am not really sure on how she made it; taking care of children, me and my lab”.

I don’t either. But I was happy to continue listening to his talk about the need to have a good life outside of lab “not because you don’t want to work but because you need to flex your brain. The best ideas can come while watching/listening to that opera, or playing with your kids, or explaining school homework to them. You never know what cross-links in your brain”.

Conclusion? Take home message? That if men would consider how much of the gender stereotypic behavior hinders them in their choices, how much of a box they are in, maybe they would be more inclined to see that working towards more gender equality would actually provide them with more choices and benefits. There are, after all, a number of areas where men are looked at with disdain and “well you can’t do that since you are a man” and at least I would be thrilled to not be judged like that based on the fact that I have XX or XY chromosomes.

I do think there it is important to remembering that we all – male or female – have things to benefit from not being recognized only as a “representative of our gender” but rather as an individual person with different goals and dreams.

(“The truth will set you free” – I just had to say it.)

[Disclaimer: Of course there are individuals that stand to loose power when adapting to this mind set. Namely the alpha males who thrive in our society today, the ones who aren’t involved in family life, more than maybe bringing home the cash, and rely on others to follow suit. The ones who would like to have this system very much left in place. I guess there is that thing though, you can’t please everybody but seriously – I do believe that the vast majority would benefit from being freer in our choices and a little less molded into whatever the gender role is. The issue and implications of class/socioeconomic status on this argument will have to wait for another post later on.]