“We have to rise up against the idea that balance is a woman’s issue, says Stephanie Coontz, it’s equally a men’s issue.  Currently, men are reporting higher levels of work family conflict than women.”

Few people know more about the state of the American family’s past and present besides Stephanie Coontz, the often-quoted Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families and author of two books about marriage. Citing current research Coontz says, “When you ask kids, they want more time with their working dads.  They want their moms to be less stressed, but if they want more time with either parent, they want it with their dad.”

For her recently-released book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, Coontz interviewed dozens of women who lived through the period of The Feminine Mystique.  In that important book, Betty Friedan described how women could not find happiness solely in housewifely pursuits. They craved more than one dimension in life—they needed to channel energies into things other than house and children. Freud had said people needed love and work—and it seems that is true for both men and women.

Coontz says looking back at the 60s mystique helped her identify similar straightjacket problems today:  one that she labels the career mystique.  “We have to battle the career mystique, that says the only way to build a career is for ONE person in the couple to devote all their time to it in the prime years of their lives”.   She notes that men are often not exempted from this mystique: that dads don’t have many options for part-time work, they don’t have career possibilities with a daddy-track that are available to women only—if you don’t happen to be lucky enough to be a blonde Swede. Holland too, is making strides in offering reduced work hours to fathers as evidenced in a recent New York Times story. But US dads do mostly without.

After Freidan’s book, after the 60’s and 70’s, women did get to leave the house more and men took on more domestic pursuits.  “Men have been deeply influenced by the women’s movement and the entry of women into the workforce,” says Coontz. “They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing housework and childcare, but now that they’ve been dragged in, they are beginning to find satisfaction in those things.  They are beginning to root part of their identity into being a father and partner.”  That is a huge change.  Just imagine Don Draper of the series Mad Men taking the day off to take care of his runaway or sick daughter.  It wouldn’t happen.  Coontz acknowledges there has been a shift of fathers into more actively participating dads, “After studying the popular culture of the 60s, it’s a stunning change that we should be proud of”.

The feminine mystique showed us that we should allow women to define themselves beyond mothers and housewives who are disconnected from the outside world.  It’s equally unfair to not allow men just a small part of their identity beyond the breadwinner role.  As much as men have taken on domestic jobs, Coontz still maintains that men who stay home are looked upon as “oddballs who experience loneliness and social isolation.”   She reports that attentive dads are looked down upon so much in the workplace that when taking their children to doctor’s appointment, they’ll lie and say its their own.

While we still need to work on work-family issues, the policies and programs have to be extended to both genders, or to both partners equally to achieve true balance.  That would be a happy family.

Originally posted on http://womenmakenews.com



Well, I didn’t win. I lost out by not getting to play much sports when I was a girl. I still got myself, but maybe not as good a version of Myself had I been sporty when I was a girl.

Title IX was shiny new back then, and I barely knew my Roman numerals.

No girls in my elementary or even junior high played on the soccer or basketball teams that so many of my daughters friends do today. Certainly not hockey teams! I don’t think they even existed.

We did play tennis however—with our families or among ourselves with low key scoring. I joined my high school team to impress colleges (unlikely considering I was 22 out of 22). Oh, and after an Olympic summer, my gang did gymnastics for fun at the Y. The only team sports I played were field hockey and volleyball in high school gym.

But I wish I had been on a soccer team like all the little girls are today.

Over the years that I’ve written for magazines such as Women Sports & Fitness (and to my parents’ dismay, Shape), and worked as a health editor at major women’s magazines, I’ve seen all the data about the positive effects of physical activity on girls. Each study made me a little more rueful, as I realized what psychological and social goodies I missed out on. Each report made me question my own personal and professional development. I wonder if my life would have been different, had I just bent it like Beckham a few times. I think of the sports not taken.

Would I have spared my stretched parents the pricey shrink bills during high school, had I enjoyed the benefits of higher self esteem and lower depression?

Maybe I could have been Summa Cum Laude like my grandfather– The Doctor of Divinity with the Cambridge accent–would always ask me. Or at least Phi Beta Kapa –instead of just magna cum laude.

I could have avoided fainting on the tennis court that time, skipped my perverse flirtation with starving myself, since sporty girls get less body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. I don’t think my parents even noticed.

I could have been president—a boss to a lot more people than I have been, or a leader of women—and men, or at least an Editor-in-chief, as opposed to Senior Editor. A writer by trade, I’m not organizationally or savvy about group dynamics. What really gives me big time regrets is the reports about how team sports are a good place to learn the social and organizational structures.

The Women’s Sports Foundation states: “It is no accident that 80% of the female executives at Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as former “tomboys”—having played sports.” That organization has a report on the benefits of sport that makes me feel even worse about the things I would have learned—faking bravado, realizing you’re not good until you’ve practiced, getting used to making mistakes. It’s worth clicking to get the whole thing, especially if you were one of those so-called TomBoys.

I want my daughter to win with sports:  l hope she does a team sport to prepare her for the other aspects of the working world, that I didn’t get trained for.

Maybe it’s not too late for me to win. I know a small business owner who just picked up ice hockey and she’s loving it. I wonder if it will change her business. If it does, then maybe I’ll try hockey too.

If quality mothering promotes the healthy development of children, maybe doubling the mothering yields a better result. You might well think so, if you heard the recent news story about a study of lesbian parents. The research got a lot of play, with a simplified synopsis that kids with two moms do better.

Of course, the real story is more complicated–still the study does tell us something about successful childrearing that we kind of know aleady: that children who are wanted and are raised in home with more resources do better than those who are not. Furthermore, there is other interesting research on LGBT families that provides lessons for mixed-sex marriages.

“The National Longitudinal Study of Lesbian Parents” followed families for 17 years, retaining an astounding 93% of the study participants. The teens assessed showed more social, academic and psychological competence than those raised with two-gender parents. They also exhibited less rule-breaking or aggressive behavior. This made for punchy headlines: kids turn out better with lesbian families than straight families.

Clark University professor Abbie Goldberg who is the author of “Lesbian and Gay Parents and their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle” says, “My hunch is that less important than sexual orientation are things like parenting style, parental investment in children, etc. – things that these lesbian parents just happened to score highly upon. Sexual orientation has less to do with how one parents than various other factors like parenting philosophy, parenting skill, motivation to be a parent, financial and social resources, etc.”

The study’s author, Gartrell has noted that that those lesbian families were more likely to be planned, committed to parenting and have sufficient resources to raise children but these very important facts were not discussed in the media coverage. But mothers know this: prepared and supported parents have an easier time.

Furthermore, the study is not exactly national, but was set in a few large progressive urban centers with active LGBT communites. Goldberg said the finding that didn’t get much play was the bad news: “children whose parents reported that they had been teased more reported worse outcomes. This is important and has implications for school practices, bullying protocols, etc.” Children from “non-traditional” families deserve to be accepted and treated as normal–just as same sex-marriages are accepted by many states.

In her own extensive research on lesbian and gay parents, Goldberg has found more equity in parenting: same-sex couples divide housework and childcare more equally. Clearly, tasks can no longer be divided on pure gender lines—there has to be a different way to assign the labor that supports a family. As any mother who does the heavy lifting of parenthood knows, that’s certainly progress. Not only does that model egalitarian values to children, it also probably cuts down on conflict between parents—and gives each mom a bit of a break.

I propose moms institute a job-sharing program starting immediately—right after Mothers’ Day. The ideal candidates for this job share: your life-partners and children.

While it’s true that mothering is remarkably rewarding occupation, the secretive but powerful union has not allowed any modifications to an unwritten and onerous contract.

Mothering has been a full-time plus overtime occupation; and the job description has changed little since the second wave or even since the microwave. On top of all the mother jobs, you have to remember to deposit your paycheck after working 40 hours. This makes for seriously tired-out mothers.

The solution is as simple as bringing human resources type thinking to this messy endeavor.

Write down all your jobs and start downloading or outsourcing them—Shopping, cooking, chopping vegetables, laundry (including the collecting, folding and putting it away), making lunches, and filing errant toy parts. FYI, there will most assuredly be no redundancy of tasks.

Then make some fancy HR type charts. Write a job description for everyone in the family and think about incentives for performance.

If you cut your mother work time in half or at least 30 percent, you’ll feel 50% or 30% better.

Most families can’t afford to job share their paid work because they need the money. But everyone can job share in the privacy of home—there’s no loss of income.

Some people have already figured part of this out. It’s called Shared Parenting by some—or just plain fair and square. The words gender equity or aphrodisiac also come to mind.

Kristin Maschka, has written a book about sharing parenting called This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood To Get The Lives We Want Today. On a recent conference call, she explained how she and her husband both decided to do 25 hours of paid work per week, sharing responsibilities for the house and children the rest. “We had to break out of our traditional roles, says Mascha. “We were stuck.”

This is no move to take mothering positions away from women. It does not mean overall job loss for women—this new system will just open the field up to other members of the family—furthering their own personal development.

Indeed, Maschka tells a story of her husband before their job-sharing started when he typically worked 80 hours a week; he took their eight-month-old baby to the park and cried, realizing it was the first time he had been alone with his kid. Ever. All the other swing pushing and park-visiting had been done without him.

Just imagine how a father’s job satisfaction would increase by doing more caretaking that makes him feel connected to his children. It gets them to their emotional side that we like so much– right quick.

Under a job sharing plan, fathers would also have to share some of their assigned activities: if they typically spent 40 minutes reading after the kids go to bed, they would have to cut that time in half giving 20 minutes of reading time to their job-share partner. Same with tossing Frisbees or lego practice.

The positive effects of job-sharing would be even greater for your kids than it is for you.

Think of the sense of independence and mastery school-age children would feel by being sous-chef for a meal. Or by putting their clothes back into the drawer. Is there any reason why we should do so many chores for them? Montessori schools charge a lot of money to assign kids jobs like that. DIY. The more we do FOR our children, the less we teach them and the less we prepare them for a life of participation and meaningful work inside and outside the home.

Performance review are simple: just tell all job-sharing participants they’re doing great and that they’re contracts will be renewed. And their bonus? a happier, less-harried mother.

Who can persuade you than your kids? Pleeease, mom……

What makes you change more than thoughts of your kids’ wellbeing? Swapping a balcony for a yard, buckling up for short trips, tossing a drawerful of sippy cups laced with BPA?

Drawing on this instinct to please our children and do what’s best for them, the new campaign Green My Parents, uses kids to persuade their planet-guzzling adults to change their ways. It’s such a brilliant idea: families get educated about environmental issues and challenged to make changes that make a difference. Not only that kids are encouraged to grade their parents’ and learn how to save money for their family—cleverly motivated by a promise to pocket the savings! What better incentives could their be for a kid than being listened to, getting power in the family plus a little money on the side.

It makes perfect sense to recruit children to make changes in the world they are going to inherit when they’re older—and the one they are living in right this minute with their grownups.

For years, Mothers and other women have lobbied for better maternity leave, sick leave, pay equity, flexible work, day care, after-school care—with little success.

What do kids think about all this? Do they understand the situation and challenges of mothers today? Have you told them how just having children impacted your earning power—and eventual retirement income? Do they know how you worry about getting them taken care of on their sick days and your work days?

I don’t imagine most of us would; experts say not to make kids our confidantes. Plus that might make them feel really guilt just for being born. School aged children have a deep sense of justice; they’re often keen to save mistreated animals or go vegan—surely that empathy extends to their maternal figure.

What if kids–who’d be most affected by the changes the motherhood movement seeks—helped lobby for the change they also need? Wouldn’t politicians be more moved by children? Most human beings, even elected ones, have soft spots for the young—it’s biology.

Imagine children giving testimony to Congressional Committees about how their lives are impacted by their mothers’ realities. Can you picture a school age child stretching out her neck so she could reach the microphone on the table facing a bunch of graying senators. It would be quite moving to have the little ones plead the case.

I wish my mom would let me stay home when I’m sick, but she needs to go to work, so I have to go to school—no matter how bad I feel.

I’m sad there’s nothing more to do after school than just watch TV with my little brother.

I don’t think it’s fair my mom doesn’t make as much money as some of the guys at her company.

Why can’t she just write her briefs at home while I do my homework?

Children fundraise for walks to benefit disease, I’ve seen them help leaflet in political campaigns, they sell cookies, so why not this?

Maybe I’ve seen too many G-rated movies where the kid saves the day, but somehow I believe they could help.

I’m pretty sure, if we told our children what we wished for, they’d try to give us the moon—even just a crayoned one.

And they’d help.  Mommy’s little secret–weapon.

The Citizen United Decision that allows corporations and unions to influence campaigns has ruled that restricting their campaign messages is equivalent to denying freedom of speech.

This Supreme Court decision has gotten thumbs down in many corners.  The president doesn’t like it.  Nor does his former opponent, John McCain. Former Justice Sandra Day O’Conner even spoke out.  This week’s poll by ABC/Washington Post showed that 65% of Americans strongly oppose the decision.

Yet perhaps women voters should be most upset with those five Men in Black.

If, when it comes to campaigns, money is speech, we know that women have less money and therefore less speech.

Money does win elections.  In the 2008 races, over 90% of the candidates who spent the most won. Only 6-7% of those who coughed up less than their opponent got a Congressional seat, according to data from the non-partisan group Open Secrets.  The presidential victor certainly spent more too.  The average purchase price, or rather expenditure—for a House seat is $1.37 million and for a Senate seat it’s $8.5 million. It’s harder for women candidates to raise big chunks of change–even from their own, so to speak. The non-partisan Women’s Campaign Forum published a report revealing that women only gave half as much money to women candidates as to men in 2008, even though 8 million more women voted.  Sam Bennett, the group’s leader has said, “The effect is clear: women candidates are being outraised and outspent. Money in politics is perpetuating the gender divide in public office”.   Wouldn’t bigger money create a bigger divide?

Certainly women’s campaigns don’t always attract the big money and donors.  In an analysis on this website of 2008 first time Congresswomen, most of the winners claimed Emily’s List and Act Blue (an online fund-raising mechanism for small donors) among their top two contributors—not any lobbying law firm or industrial sector.

Look what’s happened in the health care debate/debacle.  Health care lobbyists spent $166 million in 2009 and the resulting legislation made many American women feel as though they’ve been thrown under the bus.  Despite the ardor of groups such as Moms Rising, NOW and even a group called Not Under the Bus, they’re no match for that kind of financial firepower.  So women went backwards 30 years when it comes to abortion access.

I’m no legal scholar or campaign finance expert, but it seems to me that allowing corporations of the non- and for-profit kind to broadcast messages about candidates during election periods, will be another way to drown out the already attenuated political voice of women.

What will happen to women’s electoral fortunes now that corporations and unions are allowed to weigh in on candidates? Will total campaign expenditures go even higher-—in order to match these now-permitted corporate or union messages?  Will that make it more difficult for first time women candidates especially.

FIXING THE DAMAGE

Last week, the nice ladies of the non-partisan League of Women Voters addressed Congress practically pleading for laws to counteract the Citizens United decision. They’re on it.  Legislators have already come up with a few proposed ways to limit and control this unbridled corporate speech: by having CEO’s in commercials saying they approve of the campaign message, by setting limits on foreign-owned corporations, by not allowing corporations that get public money to participate etc. etc. Still, all that may be just putting a band-aid on a leg that needs amputation

Most Americans already think that “big companies have too much power and influence in Washington” wrote the chairman of The Harris poll in the New York Times; the feeling is mutually bipartisan–85% of adults, including 84% of Republicans feel this way.  Citizens seem united:  they want government by the people, not the companies.

Perhaps the Citizens United decision will inspire Americans to redesign the whole campaign finance system.  The creative commons hero and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is proposing a movement: Fix Congress First.  Decreasing corporate involvement in politics might be a good thing for women.  And that would look more like government by the people—all of them.

The Huffington Post’s Move Your Money Campaign is urging people to leave Citibank, BofA, and the like. Why? Because, the BIG Banks got BIG TARP money from the government and are about to pay out BIG bonuses. With squat for the little people—too many of whom are out of jobs, insurance and unemployment checks.

Huffington advocates moving your accounts to community-based banks or credit unions, which she argues are more likely to invest and help local businesses. The appeal has been answered–over a thousand people have signed the pledge to switch.

But why not go one better, and move your money into a woman’s bank?

The Big Banks of the Bailout certainly don’t have many women partners who will benefit from the Post-Tarp largesse. They certainly don’t make a point of supporting women- and minority-owned businesses as these institutions below do.

Of course, there aren’t many woman-owned financial institutions—less than a half dozen. And wouldn’t you know, two are in Minnesota–which is always the progressively cool state.

If you’re lucky enough to live in the following cities, you can switch now to these woman-led banks.

St. Paul, MN                    Bank Cheroke    https://www.bankcherokee.com

Hopkins, MN                  Citizen’s Independent Bank  http://www.bankcib.com/
Robbinsdale, MN
St. Louis Park, MN
Plymouth, MN

Milwaukee, WI               Legacy Bancorp     https://www.legacybancorp.com

Los Angeles, CA             Promerica Bank     www.promericabank.com

If you’d really not entrust more money to white men, the government keeps a database of minority-owned institutions—meaning women and African-American, Hispanic, etc. If you have the patience, you can scroll through this small list and find an institution near you:

http://www.occ.treas.gov/minority.htm

However, that list needs updating:  The Adams bank, once the largest minority-owned bank got bought this fall and is no longer women-owned.

But, there is also a woman’s bank in Iraq, although it’s probably not covered by FDIC.  So up to you.

Help me crowdsource a bigger list:  If you know of any others, please list in the comments below.

cross-posted to womenmakenews.com

Earlier this month, the Parents Television Council released a report saying that depictions of violence against women increased 120% in the past five years. I don’t find that hard to believe.

Whenever I flip on the TV, it seems like some woman is either screaming or lying in a pool of blood as sleuthy types try to discover what happened exactly. I can tell you what happened. It’s the same old, same old: rape, maybe torture, and most often murder.

Mind you, the report stated that just 5% of TV violence was directed toward women—where in the real world it’s much closer to parity according to Justice Department statistics. (In 2008, there were 21.3 violent acts toward men per 1,000 people, vs. 17.3 for women). Actually, this is one area I don’t care about parity. Except I would like to see an equal number of male rape scenes—if men were subjected to watching sexual violence of their gender more often, the writers/directors/producers might not use it so often. The only one I can recall was in Pulp Fiction.

What’s upsetting to me as a mother, is that according to The Parents’ Television Council study, acts of violence toward teen girls increased 400% over the study’s five year period. Our culture always prefers younger women—even if they’re going to be killed. Prettier prey, if you will. I don’t like my age group being the victim in these dramas, and I certainly don’t want my daughter’s peers to be starring as the comely corpses. Maybe before she gets to the age of watching TV dramas, I’ll cut the cord to the TV as my father did to my siblings’ and my astonishment.

Apparently, there’s also been an increase of 81% in depiction of domestic violence on TV. Now some people say that helps highlight the awareness of the problem, which is very real. Yet I wonder, doesn’t it make it kind of normative?

Whether entertainment violence breeds actual violence, is a controversy, I can’t solve. I just I wonder about a culture that wants to tell such stories and watch them to relax and unwind. Certainly, the great dramas of culture also include violence and I know bloody shows have been around as long as the gladiators, but what’s different about cultural violence now is that it happens all day long what with SVU, CSI here and CSI there, Law & Order endless reruns, etc. According to Watching America written back in 1991, TV people have been murdered at a rate 1,000 times higher than real world people since the mid-50s. Other studies claim kids see thousands of murders before they’re 18.

My kids just watch Discovery Channel, thank goodness, where animals just kill other animals sometimes for food—not so they can figure out who did it.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed a a single mother from California. After Jessica Garcia’s husband left, she found herself with three children–after having been absent from the workforce for many years.

Clearly and logically, Garcia told herself that she needed a union job. Her mother had always pointed out that the grocery store was one of the last places to find one.

Hoping to avoid being thrown into that large sector of the impoverished population which are female-headed households, Garcia made calculations similar to those women supposedly made years ago to “catch a good husband”, she went after a union job. “I needed security, health insurance and a pension,” she said. “Landlords aren’t going to understand that I can’t pay the rent if I lose my job.”

This savvy Californian had a good grasp of the issues as outlined by a recent study by American Prospect Society on unions and upward mobility.

Women who belong to unions earn about 11% more, or $2. an hour, according to a study released six months ago by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Union women are also 19% more likely to have health insurance and 25% more likely to have an employer provided pension, according to the study. When it comes to receiving those benefits, union membership gives women a greater edge than a four year degree, (However. union women earn significantly less than degreed women).

Not all women want to hook up as Garcia did. An ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) study done in 2001 about working women and unions found that many women didn’t understand how unions can help them, have a bad image of unions or lack the time to participate because of their unpaid labor at home. What’s more, they felt that trade unions don’t contact them or cater to their needs.

But some women are starting to realize the advantage. New female membership is greatly outpacing new male membership. Women currently make up about 45% of membership and unions estimates that by 2010 most of members will be women. Representing workers in the very female and poorly paid service sector, SEIU ( Service Employees International Union) now has 56% women.

Interestingly, another study suggests that women are good organizers. Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research for Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, found that when women made up the majority of employees, unions were voted in 62 percent of the time compared to 35 percent or less if women were the minority.

As well as getting pensions and health care, maybe women will be able to look to unions for more family friendly work policies. The Labor Project for Working Families is leading a national movement to fight for paid leave.

Now, all women could use that whether they have husbands or union cards.

Amy Cross
women make news. com