Do traditional attitudes about who should be children’s primary caretaker affect women’s career chances in this recession? One study indicates the answer is a resounding yes.
Two sociologists from Wichita State University released an analysis in 2009 of men’s and women’s employment after a layoff. It turns out that women have a harder time getting a job after they’ve been let go than do men. But some women do worse than others. Single women without children fare about as well as men, according to the study. But women with children, in the words of the researchers, “have a greater burden to prove that they’re committed to their job as opposed to being committed to their family.” And it appears that employers are holding women—but not men—to that criteria.
Could it be then that some of the most damaging forms of sexist expression are those that imply that women have primary responsibility for child care? That men shouldn’t have to think about the impact on their careers when making decisions about child bearing? That when a couple does have a child, it’s the woman who should compromise? It’s those ideas that give rise to books like this one asking whether women might be better off to choose early in their lives between having a child or a career. That is the wrong (and quite sexist) question—the right one is why it’s only women who have to decide.
Keep the Wichita study in mind the next time you hear a cutting remark about couples that have stay-at-home dads (right now, such couples make up less than 1 percent of the total; couples with stay-at-home moms comprise at least 19 percent). People who take seriously the idea that both fathers and mothers can assume the primary caretaker role are setting an example that is essential to improving opportunities for our country’s women and girls. And since many men might prefer to spend more time with their children, they’re also widening the choices available to parents of both sexes.
Steve
