Parental inequality

There are certain issues only women have to deal with.

Consider, for example, the monthly visit, a topic that those of the feminine sex handle with as much privacy as possible. It’s a biological hassle, one that alludes to a central partition between men and women: pregnancy.

It’s the great divider that for centuries has rendered equality elusive. Unlike menstruation, it cannot be taken care of simply with a tampon and some Midol. It’s a substantial concern that grows for nine months and then continues to demand time and devotion for (at least) the next 18 years.

This is not an argument against motherhood. From what I hear, those who choose homemaking and childrearing lead some of the richest and most fulfilling lives possible.

But it’s a choice that must be made: build a career, or have a child? At the end of the day, it’s an incredible struggle for women to experience career success equal to that of a man while simultaneously ticking parenthood off on their list of achievements.

At least that’s the evidence out of a recent study that followed business school graduates from the University of Chicago. It found that men and women had “nearly identical labor incomes and weekly hours worked” when they first entered the workforce. From these statistics, it appears that blatant sexism has been all but wiped clean from the corporate world.

But 15 years later, the equality in pay only remained consistent if the women in the study chose not to have children. Woman who decided to start families, on average, made just 57 percent what their male peers make.

So, women cannot have it all — which shouldn’t really be news to anyone. They must decide between the true value of their career and the desire to have a child — an option (with a monthly reminder) that must be forever pushed to the side if a woman is to commit herself to her vocation.

Men, on the other hand, don’t have to make such a choice — pretty convenient, considering they built the foundation on which today’s civilization rests.

In this day and age, should we continue to accommodate the fact that the professional sacrifices that accompany pregnancy are still saddled specifically on women? If we as a society are really to reach equality, maybe the birth of a child is a burden that should be shared equally among the sexes.

There are, of course, policies that try to right the situation. Take, for example, paid parental leave and universal preschool programs.

But until there is a societal understanding that having a child should affect the working lives of both the mother and the father, such gender inequality will continue.


E-mail: danfleis@indiana.edu