I’m back from a happy family weekend in Santa Barbara; my youngest sister, Diana, got married on Saturday to a wonderful young Spanish hydrologist. Our late father taught at UC Santa Barbara for forty years; though there were many places the wedding could have been held, it seemed right and proper to have it on the lawn in front of the faculty club. The pelicans and swans in the lagoon looked on on Saturday as the family gathered on the same grass where each of my father’s four children had played as tots. Dad has been gone for nearly three years now, but we felt him with us all the day through.
Courtney Martin at Feministing wrote on March 19 about Five Issues I Wish More Feminist Men Were Taking On. Here are her five:
1. comprehensive sexual education that include critical conversations about rape, power, and violence with men AND teaches men what and where the clit is (just sayin’)
2. advocating for more family friendly work policy for all and changing the culture of work machismo among men
3. reflecting on how much $$ goes into male athletic culture, and how linked it is to violence off the field
4. changing the culture to give men more permission to identify, manage, and talk about their emotions
5. an intersectional approach to incarceration, poverty, and race that includes a gender analysis.
Many Feministing readers offer their own suggestions in the comments.
Well, I have armies of posts on #1 and #4, with more in the hopper. (I even post and teach about, ahem, the clitoris.) I have written occasionally about sports, violence and gender (see here and here), but could probably put up a few more. And for a host of reasons, I’m not the guy — not yet — to write on #5.
It’s “work machismo” that concerns me today. I’m not entirely sure what Courtney meant by the term: did she mean workaholism (the use of work as a distraction from private emotional pain) or did she mean the culture of competition which emphasizes the importance of out-earning and “out-succeeding” your male peers? Perhaps I’ll ask. In any case, I’m getting a new perspective on work and achievement as I move deeper into my forties and settle into the reality of first-time fatherhood — and I’m coming to terms with my own work addiction.
Last night, we got Heloise down about 11:00PM; she was up again at 2:20 in the morning. My wife and I have an established routine: when the baby wakes, I am in charge of changing and soothing, and my wife (obviously) in charge of breast-feeding. Sometimes, after being changed and fed, our daughter is ready for sleep within a few minutes. Other times, she wants to be up and entertained for an hour or more — this morning was one of those mornings. I stayed up with her until nearly 4:00, and then fell asleep until my normal wake-up time of 5:30AM. Normally, the baby sleeps her soundest between about 5:00-8:00AM, which allows me some quiet time in the morning for prayer and paper, coffee and the chance to collect my thoughts. That didn’t happen this morning; just as I was getting out of the shower, Heloise woke up again — and it took me an extra 45 minutes to get her down. I got to campus three-quarters of an hour later than planned.
I’m teaching six classes, volunteering, writing, and mentoring. I’m also doing my best to spend as much time as possible with the baby when I am home; my wife is with our daughter most of the day (and takes her with her to work), so when I get home in the evenings, it’s my chance to give my wife a break and do the vital bonding that needs to happen. What has been given up, largely, is my formerly heavy-duty workout schedule; I’m now lucky to run thrice weekly, and Pilates and boxing are distant memories. My body is not as it was, and that’s fine — it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. My daughter needs her Dad and my wife needs her husband more than either need me to have sculpted deltoids. (The ripped abs are gone, lost to a “lazy vegan” diet of carbs and a sudden reduction in exercise. And amazingly enough, I’m okay with that.)
But having a daughter kicks in for me a classically American male response: the longing to be the “good provider.” I do well enough, of course, but the hunger to get published, to get various deals going — that has increased exponentially since Heloise was born. Of course, I also want to be an attentive husband and a devoted caregiver to both wife and daughter — I’m not a great believer in gender-based divisions of labor. If I can’t practice my feminism at 2:20 in the morning with a crying baby, then my feminism is worthless.
So the bottom line is, I’m living on a tight schedule. (I have ten minutes allotted in which to finish this post.) I’ll teach four classes today — about six hours worth of straight lecturing, with all the animated passion I can project — and I have grading, paperwork, and hiring committee stuff to attend to. I’ve been on the phone with a vet in Ohio, discussiing the health of some of our rescues. I’m trying to work on my book proposal and on a guest article for another site, and when I get home tonight around 8:30PM, I’ll be with my daughter until she falls asleep, and a bit more late night work. I’m multi-tasking, something that we tend to classify as a “female” activity. And I’m doing it all happily, if “exhaustedly” — and yes, I am hydrating.
From a male feminist perspective, I realize I’ve married my workaholism to my egalitarian commitments. And here’s the embarrassingly ugly truth that undergirds all this: I think it is absolutely essential that I co-parent with my wife. I think it’s absolutely essential that I give baths and change diapers and wipe up spit-up and deal with all of those good things; it is absolutely essential that I not sleep any more than my wife does. But my culturally-conditioned masculinity tells me that I need to keep working, too — that slacking off at work, giving myself a break in terms of meeting deadlines in writing and volunteering — is an unacceptable sign of weakness. Damn it, I should be able to get it all done. My sense that I can power through anything, combined with a rather narcissistic sense that I am indispensable to my students, colleagues, mentees, and even blog readers, means that I am going to make the effort to be fully present for wife and daughter without compromising a single external commitment.
I’m a male Martha. Call me any ugly sobriquet you like, and I’ll laugh it off. All except one: lazy. The charge of “laziness”, of not living up to my potential, haunts me like nothing else. It is, I realize, the very deepest of my insecurities, as it is for many of my brothers and sisters. And I am learning now that I must find a way to be who it is that I am called to be without living in fear of the suggestion that I am not doing enough.
I have more to say… but need to get to other chores. I’ll try and have more coherent blogging later this week!
Deltoid workouts are always fun! I love the shoulder fly. But Hugo, you must tell me what ab workouts you did to get them defined. I’ve tried many and still no ripped abs. What workouts do you do and for how long?
thanx
Pilates, pilates, pilates — three times a week, one full hour each. At least, that’s what I did before the baby came!
I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you calling this into question. I was actually about to e-mail you and do the same, which of course would have been not my place anyway.
The following is written with the caveat that I’m a guy who is closing in on a longtime struggle with depression………and not the, ‘it’s all fine on the outside’ kind. I probably get more exhausted reading about all the things Hugo does than he does actually doing them. My prayer is for myself to pick up speed as Hugo slows down.
That said, thank God you’re examining this.
I would call your condition more ‘actionaholism’ than workaholism since the latter mainly refers to one’s job and as we know your energies go into many things besides that (unless you mean work in the Dharma sense which indeed your other activities tend to be). Indeed if you’re going to be that sort of person than how wonderful that your thing takes on the form of being of service in so many ways.
However, and I know you’re not such an ugly American that you’ll bristle at this, rest is important too, and I don’t mean sleep.The point is not doing the most servive quantitatively before you die, the point is doing what you can as well as you can and it sounds like you’re realizing that if you take on too much then you’re actually not really helping anybody.Since long before the baby was born you have usually been,’swamped’ whenever we touched base. Hapilly swamped, but swamped. Swamped is probably not the best stance for being of service most effectively and again, glad you’re examining that.
This also may mean that you’ll need to be of service, for a period of time, to a SMALLER number of people. Perhaps some cutting back on things besides the job and the family will be in order and that would surely hurt becuase you care about the people and animals you’re helping and helping them feeds your soul. But some of them may need to fall by the wayside for some time in order to best fullfill your priamry commitments.Maybe not, but maybe.
Glad to see the exercise was the first to go and that your ego isn’t taking much of a beating from the loss of your impeccable physique. Didn’t hear you mention any lethargy as a result so that’s fortunate.
Oh and lazy…………….the things that peoples’ inner critics tell them never cease to amaze me. You will never be accused of being lazy anymore than Mozart will be accused of being tone deaf. OKAY?
One final thought: Is your wife, he is very similar to you in this way, also examining this?
WHO is very similar, not HE is very similar.
Thank you, Bill — you’re right, I’ve been saying “swamped” for a very long time.
I think “actionaholic” is right — and I think that there’s a difference between being constantly in motion and actually getting things done. I work hard but don’t always work efficiently; I still want my books written, but am willing to look at other areas to give things up.
Sigh. It’s a hard road, this business. Here’s to your picking up speed, old friend, and to my slowing down just a wee wee bit.
“My body is not as it was, and that’s fine — it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
It’s funny to see a man say that post-baby.
I’m not sure where masculinity fits into this. this behavior is pretty common among highly educated, middle/ upper class people. I’ve seen many women ( including my gf) who fit this template. it is also a fairly classic of the example of protestant work ethic which has built/plagued America. and it does seem like work (in all it’s forms) is a bit of an addiction.
I think, Greg, we relatively rarely expect men to be great multi-taskers; there’s a stereotype that “juggling” is something women do better. This may be unfair, mind you, but it persists. Workaholism is gender-neutral in general, of course.
hmmmmmmmmm….well i think multi-tasking is mostly a myth and not effective. if anything we define what women do as multi-tasking but we don’t use that word for men. i can’t think of a analogous word for men, but i think, the women i know, see multi-tasking as a badge of pride unfortunately.
Greg, we don’t expect men to be adept at both work outside and inside the home; we do expect it from women. We acknowledge “house husbands”, but not the idea that partnered men are in any significant numbers working the “double shift”; the research suggests that married men do a fraction of the domestic work their wives do, even when both work outside the home.
Hugo, I hate to tell you this, but:
1. It’s going to get harder. Sleep will get easier, but kids really do take more time than babies.
2. I’m not quite sure about what time you leave the house but if it’s at 8 and you’re not home until 830 and that’s typical — that’s not going to be a workable co-parenting model.
Have you considered quitting your day job? Focus on parenting and writing and service. You’d have less money, but that’s not always a bad thing!
Hugo, I hate to tell you this, but:
1. It’s going to get harder. Sleep will get easier, but kids really do take more time than babies.
2. I’m not quite sure about what time you leave the house but if it’s at 8 and you’re not home until 830 and that’s typical — that’s not going to be a workable co-parenting model.
Have you considered quitting your day job? Focus on parenting and writing and service. You’d have less money, but that’s not always a bad thing!
My wife takes the baby to work with her, and most days I’m home much earlier to take over.
We’re not in a position to live on one income — especially given that I have tenure and seniority and free health insurance! We’re going to get more help as time goes on, of course.
I’m going to figure this out; a passion for family and a passion for work and a passion for service can be made to “fit”, but it’s gonna take some tweaking.
I may cut the number of classes I teach.
Hugo, does PCC have any option for parental leave? If so, have you thought about taking it?
And don’t you have a standard teaching load, as a tenured faculty member? or are you doing overloads for extra pay? I seem to remember you used to do that regularly do that. I can’t really imagine teaching six courses regardless of the rest of my schedule, given that (when I track it) I can’t really figure out how to devote less than 15 hours a week on average to each class I teach. It would be less with multiple preps and on the semester system, but still…
If you are teaching voluntary overloads and not taking advantage of any available parental leave policy, that seems like a really obvious place to start. It seems to me that unless it’s wildly impractical to do so fathers commited to gender egalitarianism who are lucky enough to have a parental leave options should really avail themselves of it on general principle. People fought hard for what little we’ve got in that regard, and the “I don’t need it I’ll just figure out a way to power through” approach seems not quite right to me.
I sort of thought that one of the reasons for going into teaching is that you CAN take long leaves of absence, eg. a sabbatical?
Hugo, how will you feel if your wife’s income outstrips yours?
Um, I don’t think he’ll have a problem with that.
I’m looking into applying for a sabbatical, but those need to be applied for two years in advance; I’m shooting for 2010-2011 right now.
And yes, no problem with my wife making more than me. We’re more or less at parity now.
I say that not to pick on you, but that’s often exactly where the masculine ego takes a blow; when you have the “secondary” job and the “secondary” income. This may be a real problem if you take a sabbatical, and suddenly you’re home all day rather than being in the adult world, speaking to adults and having some prestige and respect.
“Greg, we don’t expect men to be adept at both work outside and inside the home;”
That is an overly broad statement and not indicative of many 20-30 year old men and women. it is much more typical among the young folks to expect more child rearing among men. now the older generation 40 and up is bit different and of course region and sub-culture have an effect also. this doesn’t change you main point but it does a disservice to ignore the significant positive changes in our society over the last 2-3 decades.
FWIW, i am aged, 43, and did at least as much child rearing as my ex. that was considered normal among my friends and i never got an odd look or question about changing a diaper or such.
“That is an overly broad statement and not indicative of many 20-30 year old men and women.”
Maybe there are some 20-30 year olds who are more enlightened than most of the ones I know. But in my experience, many 20-30 year old women do expect men to help out more with the child rearing…however, getting those men to actually do the child rearing doesn’t occur terribly often. The most they might do is “babysit” (often their term for what they are doing, not mine) while the mother goes to work, but that’s about all that the average 20-30 year old women that I know can expect from the father of her children in terms of doing the actual work involved in raising a child. And that’s if they are lucky enough to even get that much from the father. Also, in my experience, when the young father does “babysit”, he typically doesn’t provide the same level of care as the mother. In my experience, the average 20 year old man’s idea of taking care of a kid involves something along the lines of filling them up with candy and sitting them down in front of a tv until mommy gets home. That’s if the kid is lucky and the dad doesn’t invite all of his buddies over to drink a case of beer and watch a football game while completely ignoring the kid….or worse. I’m not even going to get into the threat of the child being abused when mommy isn’t around.
Yes Faith, i know many young men aren’t fit to take care of pet rock. i work with parents professionally and i also many women who lack parenting skills, there is a wide range of behavior among people. and we obviously know different people. but my point is, there has been a change in norms/expectations/behaviors regarding how much parenting men do which is most pronounced among younger men. There has certainly been a huge increase in the number of men fighting for custody of their children after divorce which is due to their desire to be active parents.
“There has certainly been a huge increase in the number of men fighting for custody of their children after divorce which is due to their desire to be active parents.”
It’s also quite often due to them being abusive ones. Abusive men are, unfortunately, the ones most likely to try to gain custody of their children.
greginak, are you really saying that in the US, expectations about childcare, housework and paid work are exactly the same for men as they are for women?
Mythago, I can’t imagine he’s saying that. But, it is true that in the younger generation there’s less of a tendency for women to [i]expect[/i] a man who doesn’t do his share. Some of this is silly idealism and inexperience: Not realizing that someone else doing the work involves relinquishing control over the final product, thinking that we will not care about our homes’ appearance more than we cared about our dorm rooms’, thinking that our male partners will have the same knowledge and ideas as we do. And there are still traps, like deciding to do the cleaning while the man is out of the house with friends because it’s more ‘convenient’ that way.
But the cynical/proud comments that “of *course* my husband doesn’t do as much around the house as I do! No man would!” are something I don’t hear as much. And very few women I know would be happy for their male partners to sit around relaxing while they work. It’s not that it doesn’t happen; but it IS seen as a flaw. I don’t know that this is any different from previous generations or if we just make more noise about it because we’re not cynical about it yet.
myth- no i am not saying that expectations, etc are the same for men and women. however there is a trend towards men taking more active care of and spending more time parenting. this is an entirely positive trend and it is likely to continue as the children being raised now with more involved dads will likely be involved themselves.
Housework is a somewhat different issue, ( and contentious issue) being that it involves things as opposed to people. but even there the trend is moving towards a more equal split.
Faith- ummm no, i have never seen data that shows that. abusive men often do try to get custody, but that does not mean abusive men are more likely then non-abusive men to try to get custody. it is a lot easier to get equally shared or primary custody if you don’t have a criminal record or substantiated DV complaints against you. Plenty of men want custody because they have become more involved in parenting and have greater expectations about being an active parent.
I agree with you that this is an ongoing and positive trend, but we’ve got a long way to go. We still talk about men ‘helping out around the house’ and about childcare being primarily women’s work, even if men are doing a greater share than their fathers or grandfathers.
Proponents of equality in childcare and housework have gotten past the first hump – they’ve gotten men to accept that maybe putting in a shift with the kids and the laundry isn’t the EXACT same thing as having your nuts cut off. So that’s a positive change.
The next hump is that relatively few women who express a desire for more male involvement in these areas of life are willing to give up power. Domestic power may not be as valuable or valorized in our society, but it does exist and the person who does the work often does end up holding it. But without the current incumbent giving up some of that power, the partner in an egalitarian-oriented relationship isn’t going to do more work.
S/he who dresses the child for school and makes breakfast also gets to decide what outfit is appropriate and whether today will be oatmeal or scrambled eggs.
Ok, apparently Hugo’s blog just ate my comment so lets try this again…
“Faith- ummm no, i have never seen data that shows that. abusive men often do try to get custody, but that does not mean abusive men are more likely then non-abusive men to try to get custody.”
I have seen the data to back this up, but I haven’t got the time to go digging for it. It has also been my personal experience that this is the case.
Here is one source which does state what I claim:
“Compared to non-batterering fathers, batterers are more likely to seek custody of their children, “and they may misuse the legal system as a symbolic battleground for continuing abuse through harassing and retaliatory litigation.” From Judith M. Reichler & Nancy S. Erickson, Custody, Domestic Violence and a Child’s Preference, in Domestic Violence Report, vol. 8, no. 5, 65, 66 (June/July 2003) (citing L. Bancroft & J.G. Silverman, The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics 98-129 (2002)).”
http://www.stopvaw.org/Child_Custody_Issues.html
When the man is abusive of the mother, he will often seek custody in order to punish the woman.
When the man is abusive of the children, he will often seek custody in order to maintain that power and control so that he can continue to abuse.
Ok, apparently Hugo’s blog just ate my comment so lets try this again. It seems it won’t let me post a link so…
“Faith- ummm no, i have never seen data that shows that. abusive men often do try to get custody, but that does not mean abusive men are more likely then non-abusive men to try to get custody.”
I have seen the data to back this up, but I haven’t got the time to go digging for it. It has also been my personal experience that this is the case.
Here is one source which does state what I claim:
“Compared to non-batterering fathers, batterers are more likely to seek custody of their children, “and they may misuse the legal system as a symbolic battleground for continuing abuse through harassing and retaliatory litigation.” From Judith M. Reichler & Nancy S. Erickson, Custody, Domestic Violence and a Child’s Preference, in Domestic Violence Report, vol. 8, no. 5, 65, 66 (June/July 2003) (citing L. Bancroft & J.G. Silverman, The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics 98-129 (2002)).”
When the man is abusive of the mother, he will often seek custody in order to punish the woman.
When the man is abusive of the children, he will often seek custody in order to maintain that power and control so that he can continue to abuse.
Greg,
That quote came from stopvaw dot org. If you want to check the source, just go there and look up “child custody issues”. It should be the first article returned in the search.
i looked at the site but unfortunately it doesn’t provide any more info then just a quote. it doesn’t describe the study, how it was done, the sample, how they defined the various terms,etc. so it is impossible to know how valid their conclusion is.
FWIW i work in the court in child custody investigations, so i am fairly aware of this topic. This kind of issue is very difficult to research and is often done with an agenda in mind.
Oh, Robert, is there anything bad that happens to women that isn’t at least 99%+ their own fault?
Seriously, yes, some women gatekeep – and for the same reasons that some men gatekeep about who’s bringing home the family income. When you live in a culture that teaches you your value is in doing [role A] well, if your partner can do [role A], what use are you?
it’s early but i think i also meant to type, i can’t figure out what kind of research design would let them make those kind of conclusions they quote, so i am skeptical.