Sorry, men, you’re becoming obsolete. Ladies? It’s your turn now.

At least, it is if you can believe this post in Monday’s Vancouver Sun, which claims that gender roles are changing (we knew that already, especially looking at Sweden’s new baby daddies) and that women in industrialized nations wield the purse strings, leaving men to chew hungrily on the frayed ends of the apron strings (if their beer-swilling compatriots not yet on the Mr. Mom bandwagon don’t laugh at them too hard).

Consider these statistics cited in the Vancouver Sun post:

• Parents visiting North American fertility clinics are choosing girls, not boys, when they are given free choice of the baby’s gender.
• In South Korea, 85% of women claim they want girls. Not boys.

(Girls are better, nyah nyah!)

And also these statistics:

• In Canada, twice as many young men are unemployed as young women.
• In the US, more than half the management positions are held by women.

While I could beg to differ with some of the above, coming as I do from a 70’s and 80’s feminist standpoint when the glass ceiling concept was real and when bra-burning was making way for power suits with big pseudo-man bow ties, I think the post is on to something. Things are changing. Slowly, maybe (and too slowly for the underpaid women whose “management” jobs are more than likely low-paying, under-appreciated positions in fast-food restaurants or discount stores rather than as CEOs of multi billion-dollar companies), but changing nonetheless.

How do I know this?

I’ve done my own research. Rudimentary, perhaps, but effective in illustrating what I mean. It’s this:

The number of seen pushing strollers has skyrocketed.

Oh, go ahead. Look around you. They’re out there. The New Dads. And while you’re at it, how about a look at mainstream popular culture? TV shows are filled with fathers who are actively engaging in the lives of their kids. Yes, they’re awkward and unsure about it, having few decent role models besides Atticus Finch, but they’re doing it. Meanwhile, women are prospering. Engaging. Letting go of the 80’s Supermom ideal and the 90’s soccer mom role. If men are out pushing strollers, presumably women are … what? Bringing home the bacon? One might think so, yes.

It’s a beginning. I’m not suggesting any of this change is across the board, or that it’s a simple role-reversal. I think it’s far more complicated than that. But we are beginning to make room for change, one family at a time.

Subscribe to blog via RSS