Yesterday Angela Priestley wrote a terrific piece with a message to Dads ahead of Father’s Day on Sunday. She identified eight important things fathers can do to best set up their daughters to live lives free from gender discrimination. After reading her list I was struck by something else.
There is no doubt that the way mothers and fathers treat their sons and daughters is absolutely critical when it comes to challenging – or reinforcing – rigid gender stereotypes. What goes on in our homes plants the formative seeds about what we come to expect of ourselves and others. When it comes to gender stereotyping, there is another domestic dynamic that is just as compelling and persuasive as how parents treat their children. And that is how fathers treat mothers and vice versa.
So to every father who is interested in building a world where the opportunities afforded to their sons and daughters are less dictated by their gender than the individual, please consider these things. The way you treat your wife or the mother of your children will play an absolutely vital role in dismantling the stereotypes that entrench inequality between men and women.
Regardless of whether you’re married or single, whether you live with the mother of your children or not, consider these things.
- Don’t treat your job as more or less important than her job. Regardless of who earns more money or who works outside of the home the most, you are individuals of equal importance. Live that. If you don’t want your daughter to be expected to be saddled with the singular responsibility for laundry, cooking, ironing and cleaning, why would you expect that from your wife or partner? Support your partner’s career.
- Approach parenting as a team player. Ideally raising a child would entail a village of support but in these modern times we should all be so lucky. At the very least, where it’s physically possible, two parents ought to share the physical and emotional task of looking after children. Share the responsibility for school pick-ups and drop-offs, cooking dinner, taking leave to look after your child when they’re sick. If you had a child with another person it is your joint responsibility to raise them.
- Don’t deduct childcare from your partner’s income. Childcare is a household expense and even if there is very little economic benefit in both of you working, look at the bigger picture. It’s a longer term investment in being able to generate an income. Having two parents capable of generating an income is the best insurance policy you can buy your family.
- Never, ever, be violent. As much as this ought to be painfully self-evident the grim statistics in Australia reinforce the fact it needs to be said. Aside from not being violent yourself, never ever turn a blind eye to violence. Domestic violence is rife and it’s a problem that transcends race and socio-economic divisions. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Don’t ever walk past violence.
- Think long-term. Leaving work altogether in the short-term is very expensive in the long run. Children are only little for a finite period of time so don’t make decisions without thinking about the longer term impact.
- Be an ambassador for better things. Recognise the fact discrimination exists and look for opportunities – big and small – to shift the dial. Do a pay audit in your business or ask your employer to do it. Be open to the fact unconscious bias exists. Call out sexism and discrimination when you see it. Take on your colleagues, your friends, your clients, your family every time you see something that makes you think “I want better for my daughter/son/wife”.
Fathers who do these things will, child by child, family by family, make gender inequality harder to persist. And wouldn’t that be an extraordinary legacy for any father to leave his family?
To the wonderful fathers out there, like my own, who do these things without thinking; thank you. You are the benchmark.