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June 24, 2004
by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Dear Concerned Citizen,

It has become a modern article of faith that all differences between men and women are socially constructed. This secularist creed of the Church of Political Correctness brooks no dissent or disagreement. So Professor Steven Rhoads’ heretical book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, amounts to 95 theses tacked on the door of a modern Wittenberg Cathedral.

The first dogma Dr. Rhoads tackles is the one that says mothers and fathers are interchangeable. “Maternal instinct” is a fiction. Distinct roles for mothers and fathers are relics of a superstitious age. There is only generic “parenting” which either parent of either sex can do equally well.

Dr. Rhoads committed the sin of actually gathering data on this question. He chose a sample of new parents most likely to support the ideal of androgynous parenting: university professors having their first baby. Virtually all the men and women professors assented to the Dogma of Androgynous Parenting. Many of their universities offered generic Parental Leave Policies, equally open to mothers and fathers. Guess what? Mothers took the Parental Leave far more often than did fathers. And those few fathers who took the leave used it differently than did the mothers. The women used the Parental Leave to take care of their new babies; the men used it as a sabbatical. They got more articles written; they advanced their careers, while their wives took care of the babies. So much for equality.

Dr. Rhoads found another astonishing fact. The mothers enjoyed taking care of the babies far more than did the fathers. For virtually every child care activity, from changing diapers to feeding to playing with the baby, the mothers reported more enjoyment than did fathers. The mothers’ attitudes toward most aspects of child care ranged from indifference to great enjoyment. The one task that men liked to do more than women was “managing the division of labor of parenting tasks.” Except for getting up at night to care for the child, this was the task women liked least. Dr. Rhoads speculates that women might dislike managing the division of labor because taking on this duty led to arguments with their husbands.

One possible reason that women enjoy child care more than their husbands, is that babies respond more favorably to their mothers. Dr. Rhoads asked the academic couples whether their babies seemed to have any preference for mothers or fathers. The parents reported that the infants had an overwhelming preference for being comforted by their mothers. It is easy to imagine that parents respond to their baby’s feelings. Even the most egalitarian father would eventually be reduced to saying, “Here honey, you take the baby; he wants you.”

Women are setting themselves up for failure and disappointment if they accept the cultural expectation that their husbands ought to share all household responsibilities equally. Men and women have different perceptions about what needs to be done. Men and women do not equally enjoy various household task, from child care to roof repair. Defining equality as a tit-for-tat, symmetry of chores requires men and women alike to suppress their natural inclinations, ignore their natural strengths and overlook their partner’s contributions.

A more sensible approach to equality would acknowledge the natural gender differences in preferences, abilities and sensibilities. A more humane understanding of equality would be that each partner is equally committed to making the marriage work. Instead of asking, “what’s in it for me?” they could ask, “how can I help?” Instead of keeping score and aiming for a fifty-fifty division of labor, they could aim for giving one hundred percent of themselves. Equality could mean, “I do all I can for him, and he does all he can for me,” knowing full well that we aren’t each going to do the exact same thing for each other.

The modern feminist movement drew its appeal from the ingrained American sense of fairplay and sympathy with the underdog. But that movement always had wide streaks of irrationality. The feminist mainstream treats every debatable proposition, every testable hypothesis as if they were assumptions. Now someone has debated those propositions and tested those hypotheses. The facts are in. Men and women are different in socially important ways. It takes a lot of faith to believe that all differences between men and women are socially constructed. It is time for our laws and culture to Take Sex Differences Seriously, without apology.
 
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Responses to: The Importance of Fathers this Father's Day

I'd like to respond to a particular part of your message about the importance of fathers. In the second paragraph, you mention "so many children been voluntarily abandoned by their fathers". While this is a major problem and the point of much of the rest of the article, I'd like you to consider the case of fathers who have been forcible removed from their children's lives.

The divorce laws in many states are far too liberal and far too weighted on the side of women. In many places, it takes two to get married, but only one to get divorced. So called no-fault divorces are very common and one party can send the other packing, thus removing them from their own and their children's lives, with no recourse for the respondent. No fault, no reason, no recourse. And worse yet, the law assumes the father to be at fault, or at the very least a bad parent. The mother is assumed to receive custody - and the father has to fight an uphill battle to gain an equal footing in the proceedings. Many states also grant the mother a default garnishment order - even before the father has started paying child support, because the law assumes fathers to be deadbeats.

I have a daughter who doesn't spend but a few hours each week with me. Her mother divorced me eight years ago while I was in seminary. She filed the month she discovered she was pregnant with her boyfriend's baby. She spent the next couple of years keeping my contact with my daughter at a legal minimum, while telling her that her step father was her real daddy.

The media (public and religious) like to portray men as "dead beat." It is very rare that you see characters or hear stories about the divorced dads doing everything they can to be active in their children's lives - some of whom have to literally do battle just to accomplish that. I have not missed a child-support payment in eight years. (I missed quite a few meals to make sure I made those payments, though.) I have not missed a visit with my daughter unless I called ahead to reschedule. It would have been easier to have been a deadbeat.

Maybe if the law would treat marriage as it does any other contract, with consequences for violating it ... Maybe if the law would give men a fair shake when a marriage does fail ... Maybe if the media and church would stop telling men we're all deadbeats and start lifting up the heroes who have loved and cared for their children the best they could under difficult circumstances ... Maybe if fatherhood was as cherished by this culture as apple pie, baseball and mom ... Maybe then we'd see a new day of fathers rising to the challenges and fulfilling our responsibilities.

At the very least, include in your rhetoric the idea that some fathers did not abandon their children and are not deadbeat.   M. W.

It doesn't require that a man be a biological father to bring fathering energy and wisdom to the next generation. This should be nowhere more evident than in the church, where a whole class of ordained men has been addressed as "Father," and for good reason. Biological fatherhood is a result of the meeting of sperm and egg. Ongoing, effective fatherhood requires much, much more, and delivers a wealth of result.

Gay men are good fathers. Sterile men are good fathers. Unmarried men are good fathers. Celibate men are good fathers. Grandfathers, uncles, and brothers are good fathers. I would far rather a boy be raised by a competent single man than in an abusive household of husband and wife.

Yes, we have a crisis of lack of fatherhood. But let's not look to the nuclear family of mother-father-child to be the answer. The answer lies in men, like you and me, who are willing to be coaches, mentors, foster parents, pastors, teachers, and otherwise advocates for children.   S. N.

Father's Day is widely sussed in the UK as a commercial exercise from the USA successfully promoting capitalism. I am a father, grandfather and capitalist but question the need for Father's Day - Mothering Sunday is enough to celebrate parenthood. However, I was taken to a Mothers' Union branch meeting last evening here at which the speaker, the MU President of the Canterbury diocese, spoke entirely about HOW the MU works and nothing at all about WHAT it does or WHY. Please emphasise what Father's Day is FOR transparently. Celebrate parenthood of either gender and normal family life. Our new Dean Very Revd Jeffrey John does as a pastor nonpareil.    M. J.

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  Jennifer Roback Morse
Jennifer Roback Morse is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She has appeared on numerous talk radio shows nationwide and is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Register. Her public policy articles have appeared in Policy Review, the American Enterprise, Fortune, Reason, the Wall Street Journal, and Religion and Liberty. From 1980 to 1996, she taught at Yale and George Mason universities. In 1996, she moved with her family to California, where she now pursues her primary vocation as a wife and mother.
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