I find this article – “What About the Men?” - from Judith Warner so fascinating and timely.
That men are experiencing work-family conflict isn’t new. Indeed, it’s been some time now that they – and younger men in particular – have been complaining of feeling the squeeze in even greater numbers of women. What appears to be new is that they’re starting to talk about it – just a bit. Which means that maybe they’re starting to realize that they’re not unique or alone in feeling they’re failing at the impossible task of “doing it all.”
In other words, men just might be poised to have a collective “click” moment. “My experience,” said Galinsky, “is that, when they have permission to speak, they have a lot to say and it’s very profound and real for them.” Failure, instability, uncertainty, the self-doubt that comes from a spending a lifetime playing one game only to find, mid-way through, that the rules have suddenly changed, seem to have shaken up the old categories of self, work and meaning for many men.
Needless to say, don’t read the comments…
“Judith, do you not realize that this article states absolutely nothing of real importance? What are you even trying to say? A women trying to tell us how guys feel just doesn’t click with the male population.”
Shorter [male] commenter: TL;DR woman talking about men therefore she must be wrong.
Of course a man talking about women = expert. /snark
Geez Blue Milk, no idea where to start. Obviously the raw deal that men get is key to many feminist messages, esp, but not limited to Flora Tristran and Germaine Greer. In teh early nineties there was a similar sort of disquiet, but the spear carriers got most of the headlines and press and that bloke Farrell came out with “The Myth of Male Power” and we ended up with an angry dads movement and it was cartoon dichotomies at twenty paces all over again.
Galinsky’s point about permission to speak is very important. there is a powerful pressure for silence, or at least an inconsequential chatter. the derogatory labels; queer, soft, mother’s boy, snag, and the rest place limits around what we can get away with talking about. above it all, there is that role, be a man. if you don’t know what that is watch some more John Wayne movies and the f**ty show every thursday, that’ll sort ya.
Obviously this base caricature is not universal, and most of the men i know are challenging the roles that their parents bequeathed them, here’s hoping.
My husband just had to negotiate flexi-time at work. It was really difficult and the most obstruction he has received has been from a woman manager at his work (who also happens to be pregnant) eg: he had to pick our daughter up early one day as my train was delayed and she said something like “Yeah, right.” It happened to be a beautiful sunny day and the implication was that he was making up an excuse. I did wonder whether his employer would have said the same to a mother. But, as Cloud pointed out when we chatted about this in relation to a previous post, often women pay it forward. So they are seen as unreliable in the workplace, not promoted as a result, so then it is no big deal if they then ask for flexi-time.
Yup. Must signal boost this once I get my new domain up. Only, “when [men] are permitted to speak”… Mmmmmph, pfft.
Hahaha Helen. So young and yet so jaded? But you must admit men are very timid about coming out with work-family juggling needs and I suspect most of the policing is happening from other men. I mean, time and time again, younger men, particularly, show up in surveys as wanting to have more time with their kids, feeling very squeezed between workplace expectations and those of their partner’s, very disastisfied with their current arrangements and yet are slow to change.. so what’s going wrong? They must face some serious gender stereotypes of their own to overcome.
The article I’m really dubious about is this one – http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/21/time-cover-story-why-men-and-women-should-end-the-chore-wars/ – can’t access it without a subscription though. Might write something about it quickly…
Correction: can access it and am writing a whole lot about that article.. stay tuned.
I look forward to reading what you write on that chores article. I saw it when it first came out and hate, hate, hated it. I blasted it in a comment on someone’s post somewhere, but I can’t remember where and it was not a rant I turned into a post of my own, so I guess that particular piece of vitriol is lost to me now.
Once I got over my knee-jerk instinct not to read anything more from Judith Warner after she told me that using my breast pump was an act of subjugation, I clicked through and read this piece. I agree with the last line- there is an opportunity for a better deal for everyone here, if we can figure out how to collaborate with the dads who want more time with their kids, and (as you’ll guess from my comments on that other thread) with the people without kids, who don’t necessarily want to be chained to their desks, either.
I’m just going to preemtively gaaaaaahhhh and say that I come to work to get away from my children sometimes, and I know more than one father who comes home just that little bit late so he doesn’t have to deal with the arsenic hour. So yeah men might be putting in as many hours, but they are not putting in the same effort. Also, I know who is putting in the hours housecleaning in the evenings and weekends and it generally isn’t him.