Gender Roles

When I was raising children I worked to make sure that both sons and daughters got used to helping around the house. I remember one time when I was on the phone talking to my mom and also trying to get my son to get on with his designated evening task for the day which was to wash the dishes. My mom was horrified when she heard me say "get out there and get starting on those dishes right now," horrified because I was saying it to one of my sons. When I was a girl my sister and I took turns doing the dishes every night of the week. Our brothers had to take out the garbage weekly, feed the dog sometimes and mow the lawn in the summer. It is just the way it was.

When I moved away to college and then was pressured to move home again by my parents to attend the local university, I agreed if I could also get a car. I wanted to have some freedom of movement. My dad agreed until I moved home and then I was told that I did not need a car whereas my younger brother did. (Presumably so he could transport girls who didn't have cars.) My response was to hitchhike around town, a response that was clearly more dangerous than driving a car. It was the 1960's and there were many students both driving and hitchhiking around town so I survived.

The message was always that I needed someone to support and protect me. It was aggravating but it was the way my parents had been raised and their parents before them. In the intervening years, since that time, gender roles have shifted around. For economic reasons, because many of the typically male oriented jobs have left the country and the cost of housing and insurance has risen beyond the affordability of a single paycheck, woman have had to pick up more of the support role inside families. I see my daughters and other young women of their age working longer hours and bringing in more of the family income. The men are picking up more of the homemaking role and childcare as well since they tend to have more flexible jobs, but not without some personal cost. The message that the culture gives to men still insists that they should be bringing in the larger paycheck, supporting and protecting their wives even though there are fewer and fewer jobs that would allow them to do that. I am aware that in communities of color this has been the situation for some years, but it is new for those who in the past were protected by white privilege.

Young women are struggling with multiple messages as well. Their mothers and others of my era can lapse into telling young people how they 'should' be able to make it on one paycheck. This is nonsense in light of the current cost of things. Can you imagine that when my husband brought home the minimum wage of $2.35/hour the cost of our housing was $95 a month for a two bedroom duplex and then $125 for a two bedroom house with a basement! Today the minimum wage is at $8.25/hour in my part of the country which is about three and a half times that of 40+ years ago. Yet, there are no apartments available for even four times what we paid for rent.  To pay $525 per month for two or more bedrooms would be a gift in this economy where $650 is not possible for a one bedroom in good condition but might be available with restrictions for people with case workers and low income status.

The other message women still receive is that their husbands should be the ones able to rescue and support them with a sufficient wage that allows them the choice of whether or not to stay home with the kids. This message spills over onto the men they love when the men can't find a job that will permit the old way to prevail. Men feel trapped in a role just as women felt trapped when they had to stay out of the job market. Caught in this struggle of what is and what should be and what used to be couples struggle and parents and grandparents say all the wrong things.

When I was in college I used to sit in the common room and dream along with my friends both male and female of a world where both parents worked part time to make up a single income that would include benefits for everyone and allow both parents to have free time and parenting time. What happened for most families was a twisted version of that dream where both parents work too much for too little, often without benefits, while neither has enough time to parent well and free time is just a dream for everyone. Its equal in a weird way.

I am venting. The world is not always what we wish for but there is wisdom in saying that most things work out okay in the end --- its getting to that end that takes courage, stamina, love and faith. Our culture is in transition and we haven't yet worked out the details.