Let’s redefine “mom” and “dad”

I watched the presidential debate Tuesday night.

What else does a self-respecting procrastinator do when attempting to put off schoolwork?

I was frustrated. Which self-respecting Midwesterner wouldn’t be uncomfortable seeing two candidates rudely get in each other’s faces?

One of the most discouraging interludes included the half-baked discussion of women’s issues.

We discussed the necessity of a woman’s paycheck for the family. We discussed the importance of equal pay and access to women’s health services. We discussed the oft-forgotten issue of storing our women in binders.

Though these issues are important, they are talked about begrudgingly and in an annoyingly gendered manner.

Women’s issues are still thought of as special interest. Though women make up 51 percent of the population, our interests are thought to be secondary to jobs or the economy.

Politicians talk as though a woman’s access to birth control and equal pay does not affect everyone.

In the United States, birth control remains a largely female responsibility because the burden of child rearing still falls disproportionately on women.

There is a 15-minute shot in production that will render a man’s sperm useless for up to 10 years. It is also easily reversible.

You have probably never heard of it.

Why would you, when it is doubtful anyone would use it? Why would men protect themselves from getting some woman pregnant when she’s the one who will have to deal with the consequences?

If child rearing was actually a dual-parent activity, not only would contraception be a universal issue, but the reasons women are denied equal pay would dissipate.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney bragged about how he knew it was important to allow his female employees more flexibility with their schedules.

Women do need flexible schedules because they are disproportionately the ones picking kids up from school, readying dinner and making sure homework is done.

Often the pay gap is blamed not on sexism but on women’s choice of fields.

But women get lower-paying jobs because of unfair gender expectations.

A woman can be passed as a new hire or for a promotion because employers know that when she starts a family, she will split her time between two jobs, her professional career and her job as a mom.

There is no such expectation for men.

When men start families, it means it’s time for a promotion because he has more people he needs to support at home.

It means he is more dependent on the company and has more at stake if he loses his job.

What if we expected child care to be split evenly between mother and father?

There would be no difference between hiring a woman and hiring a man. There would be a level playing field. Maybe men would work a little bit less, women a little bit more and their pay would finally even out.

I’m not surprised that our presidential candidates refused to question America’s fundamental assumptions about gender, but I really wish they would.

­— casefarr@indiana.edu