Equality begins at home

Women are not treated fairly in America.

The splitting of daily domestic responsibilities is one way that this unfairness manifests (there are many more), and it’s the one area I kinda sorta understand so I’ll stick to this narrow subject.

In the past year, two unexpected things happened to help me learn this unfairness existed, even in our own home. First, I was furloughed from my job. My wife became our primary breadwinner and I picked up the role of lead parent, plus 20 hours a week of contract work. Second, Robyn became my office mate and I began seeing up close the tax domestic responsibilities put on her.

I never actually understood “mom brain” until I was trying to do what Robyn had been doing since Bo was born: juggling like 5,000 different details and bids for her time. It’s more than a full time job. But beyond that, it shreds your brain and zaps energy.

I lost a measurable amount of weight within week of becoming lead parent. It was hard to be at my best, because I was mentally and physically blitzed, every day.

And, I felt less valuable, honestly, despite Robyn’s best efforts to make me feel honorable and appreciated. Our culture doesn’t make domestic work heroic, even though it is.

Women bear a disproportionate amount of these domestic responsibilities in America. This is a fact. I liked to think I was some sort of exception and this was not true for us, that somehow our distribution was fair despite the odds.

Wrong. I was lying to myself. Our split of home duties wasn’t egregiously unfair, but they weren’t fair. Which we are working on and have been for the past year. It was tough to read as a man, but if you’re interested in this idea, check out the book Fair Play for a ton of stories and a framework for working toward a fair arrangement.

Of course, what “fair” looks like varies by family. A family with historic gender roles can be as fair or unfair as a family with both partners working outside the home. Both can be great setups, but both can also be unfair - usually for women.

This unfairness makes women pay a tax on sharing their talents with the world. It’s just much harder to contribute something - whether at work, through community volunteering, or through a hobby or passion - when you have a case mom brain induced by an unfair balance of domestic responsibilities.

Robyn, still, gets interrupted more when I’m on duty with the kids because she’s the one they want to kiss their boo-boos. Robyn, still, gets her day hijacked more by “emergencies.” Robyn, still, gets more judgement if we have a messy house, messy kids, or miss some sort of caregiving responsibility.

And so she’s taxed on being able to contribute her talents fully. And because she’s my officemate now, I see firsthand how she has to work harder at everything to make the same contribution I can. Which isn’t fair.

The worst part is what the world is missing out on, by treating women unfairly. Whether it’s through a job, a hobby, or community effort, our culture taxes the gifts and talents of women. The loss of that taxation of talent is probably measured in the billions and trillions of hours, dollars, or quality of life years.

So what do we do differently? And by we I mean my brothers, because I’m writing to other men - husbands and fathers, specifically - today. I think we have to do the work with our partners to determine what’s fair in our own families. Because I’m convinced equality has to begin at home.

And it’s for real really uncomfortable to talk about, because even though we may think we have a fair situation going (I did), we probably don’t (we didn’t). And I felt a lot of guilt realizing Robyn was paying a tax on her talents, directly because of me. I was unintentionally harming her. And owning up to that sucks, but don’t we owe that to our partners and the other important women in our lives?

But gender equality is really good for us, too. We have more social permission to be part of home life. Like being fathers or caregivers. We can say, “yup, I can work on this, but after dinner and bedtime”, or, “no, I can’t make the call because my wife has a commitment and I’m watching my kids” with less stigma.

I think if we do the work at home, more equal public policy like paid family leave, childcare support, or reforms to prevent harassment and domestic violence probably follow in spades. Because we’ll have walked that road with our partners and will be emphatically motivated to advocate their interests, because now we understand more of the tax they pay.

This year has opened my mind to the win-win generated by gender fairness and equality, however that’s defined for our individual families. The sacrifice is us doing the difficult work to make things fair at home. But that sacrifice will be so worth it if we choose to make it.