The idea that fatherhood and motherhood are equivalent is one of those ideas that\u2019s so absurd that it\u2019s hard to know what to do when people advance it. At a certain point a proposition becomes so radical that there aren\u2019t really enough connections back to reality to know what to do with it. Other than comics and comedians, there aren\u2019t many folks who even address the issue.<\/p>\n
One woman who did address the issue is Karla A. Erickson, who wrote a piece entitled Explaining why, next time, I won’t breastfeed<\/a>. The full article is behind a paywall now, but this post<\/a> contains one of the important quotes:<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s a year later, and I don\u2019t breastfeed anymore. But my son still prefers for me to read to him before bedtime, and to wake him up in the morning.<\/p>\n When he is feeling sick or skins his knees, it is me he rushes to for comfort. I did the work and now receive the rewards of being the skin, the smell, the face, the touch that is closest to him \u2014 and it is to me he rushes.<\/p>\n Over the years, my husband and I will work to unwind this preliminary advantage, but we could have avoided solidifying it if we had decided to use formula, or to pump and bottle feed our son.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, this woman will not breast feed her next child because of the unfair advantage it gives her in bonding with her child. I can’t say I agree with her response to the inequality between motherhood and fatherhood, but she certainly gets that there is one.<\/p>\n One could argue that this initial advantage can be overcome\u2014that is Erickson\u2019s plan, after all\u2014but I think there is no serious doubting that there is<\/i> an early advantage. I\u2019m also skeptical of the overall success of this plan. Young men dying on foreign battlefields do not cry for their fathers. It\u2019s always their mothers for whom they call out.<\/p>\n Now, the reason that I opened up with the story about my son is to convey that I understand that gender roles come with a cost. For me, having my son accept my comfort when he was angry and hurt was a momentous occasion because it was so rare<\/i>. I was jealous of my chance to be the one who held him close.<\/p>\n There are many other ways in which traditional gender roles have a cost for men as well as for women. I have always dreamed of being a writer, and I\u2019m vain enough to think that maybe I would have had the chops to make it by now if I had concentrated on that full-time, but I didn\u2019t make that choice. My faith emphasized that my duty was to provide, and my patriarchal blessing re-affirmed that. I have always chosen the classes to study and the jobs to take based more on what will fulfill that duty and less on what will allow me to reach my own dreams.<\/p>\n There is a word for this. The word is discipline. I say that not to crow about my powers of self-control (which I would guess are just average), but rather to point out that I am disciplined<\/i> by the concept of gender roles. It is not something I relish. I like my current job quite a lot, but in about a decade of work the overall impression I have had is that essentially no one likes their job. Your peers will tell you that honestly, and over time you begin to realize that when your superiors tell you otherwise they are lying. (Your underlings, should you have any, will obviously\u00a0not<\/em> want to talk about this with you.)<\/p>\n I think my experience is very common to Mormon men of my generation. As more and more women enter the labor pool, the increase in supply has an easily predicted impact on wages: they fall<\/a>. This means that a Mormon man trying to support a family at a typical standard of living has to work much harder in comparison to other men (whose wives are likely to also be working) then he would have in decades prior. While many women in the Church feel increased desire to take advantages of the new opportunities open to women in our economy, men feel the strain as well in having to find ways to outcompete their peers. This pressure on men is exacerbated by the fact that Mormon men are also more likely to have children earlier in their careers and to want to be present as fathers. The fact that the overall decline of marriage means that more and more men are feeling a decrease<\/i> in pressure at the same time, leading to a prolonged adolescence where low-effort jobs provide enough money for rent, food, and computer games, is just salt in the wound.<\/p>\n None of this should be read as anything remotely like attempting to one-up the challenges that women face in their traditional roles. My point is not at all \u201cmen have it worse.\u201d My point is basically \u201ceveryone has it bad.\u201d Gender roles are hard<\/i>.<\/p>\n And yet I still believe in them.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n I believe because I think that the messy biological aspects to our mortal existence are probably not superfluous. I believe that, as we are created in God\u2019s image, the biological differences that underlay gender roles are probably there for a reason. No matter the process, the Creation is clearly an intentional<\/em> act in terms of its final form.\u00a0I realize that some people like to stress the idea gender(cultural) and sex (biological) are independent, but <\/span>I agree with Camille Paglia<\/a>: the rare variations to the rule merely prove the rule that, across both time and cultures, women tend to be nurturing caregivers and men tend to be physical providers and protectors. I think too often we devalue the roles women play in our society because we are prudes when it comes to biology. Anything that isn\u2019t as clinically sterile as a new cell phone repels our modern society, which is why so much pornography infantilizes women.<\/span><\/p>\n I believe because I think that we are too quick, in our modern American society, to try and atomize the individual. On both the left and the right, individual liberties have become such a strident clarion call that it seems as though we\u2019re deaf to the notion of community<\/i>. I believe that gender roles are hard because they are primarily about duty and obligation as opposed to self-actualization and liberty, but that sometimes duty is what we need to flourish as interdependent members of a society.<\/p>\n I believe because our leaders teach gender essentialism consistently from the pulpit and in official pronouncements. Obviously leaders are fallible\u2014sometimes even on serious issues\u2014but I still give a lot of weight especially to messages that seem central over an extended period of time. I believe because I think that gender roles can serve to make society safer for the vulnerable. Men, as the overwhelming aggressors in acts of physical and sexual violence, ought<\/i> to live by a stricter standard and be subject to higher scrutiny. And, quite frankly, I believe because there\u2019s something beautiful about complementarity.<\/p>\n![\"2014-01-20](\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2014-01-20-Jim-Gaffigan-Quote.png\")
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<\/a>None of this should be taken to mean that I think that any particular culture has a perfect lock on exactly what the gender roles ought to be. I think that the specifics have to be fluid as general, abstract principles are worked out in the context of particular socio-economic realities. I also believe strongly that there are now and always will be exceptions to the rule, that we ought not to judgmentally apply our own personal standards to those around us. I was, once again, inspired by Paglia\u2019s assessment that LGBT people have always existed at the fringe of society, where the prophets and poets reside. I believe the underlying principle that we can celebrate traditional gender roles without oppressing those who fall outside them, is true.<\/p>\n