Hard for Ideal Males

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Dear friends of women in science,

Lindsay Trimble wrote in the Gender News from Stanford June 11 about an issue as we look at gender in the workplace. A new survey showed that men's time per week with their kids increased from about 2% to over 7%. Their housework time also increased (both categories are still higher for women than for men, though). The Trimble article asked, is the ideal, child-oriented man an ideal employee? As you would probably expect from some of the comments a few months ago about longer hours demanded of male employees, having a man want to spend time with his kids isn't always welcome to employers. Driving the kids to school and reading bedtime stories fit well, but taking time off to care for a sick child is another matter. Flexibility policies may look like this is encouraged, but it could hurt a career.

Shelley Correll at the Clayman Institute at Stanford has found "workers who take a career break or temporary reduction in hours for family reasons suffer a pay penalty. Further, it seems that dads who seek flexible work arrangements suffer even worse consequences than moms. One study shows that dads who seek part-time schedules for childcare face harsher character judgments relative to moms. In another study, dads with caregiving responsibility report more co-worker harassment than mothers or childless colleagues do."

So men who try to equalize gender roles are running into resistance. Do you find this problem where you are? Have you seen men given a hard time to assuming parental responsibilities?

cheers,

Laura

3 Comments | Post a Comment

Hi Helen,
Wow, I never did have that experience since most of the people I supervised were either undergrads or faculty, who are independent minded and wouldn't ask, they'd just do whatever they wanted. Industry keeps track of time a lot more closely, for sure. I'm glad you felt able to support the request after reflection. It's a sticky issue for sure.

cheers,
Laura

From: Laura Hoopes | June 21, 2013

Hi Laura--it's funny that you bring this up because I recently had to coach myself on being more respectful of the "ideal man" in my organization.

One of my colleagues allows all of us in the group to see the details of his calendar which means we know when he can't meet with us to take his daughter to gymnastics in the middle of the day or to swim class, etc.

The first few times this happened I was miffed! Where was his wife, why was she not taking their daughter to all these activities...and why oh why were they in the middle of the day!

Once I realized I wouldn't be upset with a woman trying to achieve some balance I realized this was silly, and I should get over it. But I can see that it causes issues, particularly with his female colleagues who also juggle work and home. He is praised for doing so little while they feel penalized for all that they contribute at home and work.

It's an interesting dilemma!

Helen

From: hmcbride2000 | June 20, 2013

Hi Laura--

My friend's boyfriend has gotten some grief from his postdoc supervisor for taking his kids to the doctor, etc. He says he always makes the time up, but evidently the supervisor thinks a postdoc should work 24/7 so there's not any "free time" that can be used to make up time!

Michelle

From: Michelle N | June 20, 2013

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