New from me: the pandemic meant an increase in housework. In straight marriages, that labour has fallen mostly to women.

An expert said, "I don’t think it’s that fathers are trying to skirt their labor... It’s the effect of a lot of small interactions.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/elaminabdelmahmoud/parenting-dads-gender-gap

This piece is having a bit of a ~ moment ~ so let me say a few things about it. First things first, the replies have drawn in "that's misandry!" internet, which is gross and to be expected, but also drawn in lots of "noooo shit" internet, which is fair and to be expected.

The story is about how the pandemic is making a pattern that already existed worse. Dr. @CaitlynMCollins told me that research shows on the whole, more couples say they believe in egalitarian ideals, but when couples have kids, those ideals tend to erode a bit.

There is, overall, a “slow and unconscious reversion” to more traditional roles. Dr. Collins said “women tell me all the time they don’t know why it happens, it just kind of begins to happen.”

That reversion is reinforced by public policies like parental leave, or childcare policies, or workplace policies. So it’s a problem, and it's made worse by existing public policies.

But a central culprit in said slow and unconscious reversion is actually…attitudes of men. @BuddyScarboro, who’s a co-author on the study, told me that there is a continued belief in gender essentialism.

And it plays out like this: its tenets are that women are equal, but they have different skills. So lots more ben believe that women can be just as successful as men in the workforce...but that they are better at childcare.

Actually, I think you need his full quote to me: “Most men believe that women can advance as much as men. But where we’re lagging is men still believe that women are better caregivers than men. These gender essentialist beliefs are damaging women’s potential advancement.”

In parenting, this gender essentialism transforms into a “mom’s just better at it” dynamic. This is what’s meant by small interactions, by the way. Over time, children repeatedly rely on mom, and moms get better at tasks, and dads don’t have to.

“When the going gets tough,” Dr. Scarborough said, “families revert back to these gender norms.” And he said that a lot of households where this is happening, they might not even be aware of it — it’s the cumulative effect of little tasks.

That’s what Dr. Collins said is referred to as “learned helplessness.” Over time, women accrue more knowledge about what kids need, and men learn not to know all the things — they just… haven’t had to.

But the snowball effect is that couples who all along intended to have an egalitarian division of labour end up moving away from that.

These dynamics were ALREADY in place. But the pandemic is making them even more unequal.

In ye olde pandemic, Dr. Collins said, “it’s not like dads are sitting in a TV room with popcorn thinking ‘i’ll leave all the work to moms.’” It’s that these small interruptions that become “mom’s problem” are adding up to impact the hours of women more than they are for men.

Dr. Scarborough said look, this is cause for alarm because “This worsens the gender gap. if fathers don’t have to drop their hours, then women’s advancement suffers.” Over time, this has huge consequences for more women in senior roles, or getting closer to closing the pay gap.

Dr. Collins put the stakes of the pandemic's effect on women's employment like this: “I think it’s gonna be devastating for a generation of women workers. We’re gonna see women leaving the workforce in droves, and that’s a huge problem.”

She pointed out that the study they did “is not capturing all the people who lost their jobs or people who opted out of employment. And we have to think of opting out of employment as a forced choice.”

Thing is.. dads *are* doing more housework and childcare than they were before the pandemic. This is reflected in the research, and I talked to @coffeebaseball about it. But they are doing an increased amount of an increased workload! And it doesn’t mean they’re suddenly on par.

And we still see vast differences in terms of the mental load, i.e. the person who has to worry about things getting done. So for example, men are helping more w/ virtual learning.

But it’s still more likely to be women who are coordinating with teachers for lessons, figuring out where the studying desk is going to go — basically everything that has to happen FOR dads to teach.

These differences end up skewing people's idea of "doing more." That... resulted in this incredibly concise headline that summarized the rift: "Nearly half of men say they are doing most of the home schooling. 3% of women agree." I mean. That's it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/upshot/pandemic-chores-homeschooling-gender.html

This is getting long so I’m gonna wrap it up here: these dynamics end up presenting themselves often times without couples being aware of it. Dr. Collins said sorting this out has to be an intentional conversation, it can’t just be assumed.

“No men woke up and threw up their hands and said ‘I’m gonna do nothing.” It’s more that the more actual mundane tasks and cognitive labour of thinking through what a household needs, the mental noise, falls on women,” Dr. Collins said.

Dr. Scarborough literally said that dads should keep track of their house, and how often children are going to mom vs going to them, and if they don’t like what they see, do something about it.

He put it like this: “Gender equality isn’t just supporting women’s career advancement, but also being a more active caregiver.”

Okay, FIN.