The mama lion at the gate

Maternal chauvinism is a dad's greatest obstacle to parental parity.

By Cathy Young

Jun 12, 2000 | "Say Da-da," a male voice off-camera urges a baby seen through the lens of a camcorder.

"Ma-ma," gurgles the baby.

"Say Da-da."

"Ma-ma," insists the baby.

A tag line appears at the bottom of the screen: "Baby's first word. Another great reason for being a woman."

This recent commercial for Oxygen, the female-oriented interactive cable channel and Web site, prompted some angry posts from offended dads on Oxygen.com message boards. Were they being too sensitive? Not if you consider that the "baby's first words" commercial is part of a barrage of cultural messages telling fathers that no matter what, they're always going to be in second place in their children's emotional lives. What's more, it looks like women are taking gleeful pleasure in men's second-class status. For a gender reversal, try to imagine a commercial making fun of a woman's helpless attempts to pump gas until a guy comes to the rescue.

From a woman's point of view, the Oxygen commercial might look like innocent fun, a way to make women feel good about themselves and about the special things they have in common. Yet in the end, this warm and fuzzy tribute to womanhood may not be so good for women, either. It appeals to an attitude -- call it maternal chauvinism -- that helps perpetuate the unequal division of labor at home and holds women back in the workplace.

Discussions of working women's extra burden of housework and child care usually pin the blame entirely on the male of the species. In her landmark 1989 book, "The Second Shift," sociologist Arlie Hochschild spoke of a "stalled revolution" in which changes in sex roles in the workplace had not been matched by changes at home, and left little doubt as to who was stalling: The problem was one of "faster-changing women and slower-changing men."

In "Backlash," the 1991 bestseller often viewed as the definitive feminist work of the 1990s, Susan Faludi assailed the notion that women couldn't combine careers and motherhood, writing that "women might have less trouble 'balancing' if they had fewer dishes and diapers in their arms -- and their men had more."

Advocates for the male perspective contend that the reality is very different: If men haven't become equal partners at home, it's because women won't allow it. Women, they say, may seek equality with men in the public world, but they want to maintain control over their traditional domestic turf, and are particularly slow changing when it comes to relinquishing their primacy as mothers.

"Generally, men are as involved with their kids as their wives will let them be," says Armin Brott, author of several advice books for fathers and coauthor of the 1999 book "Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men From Being the Fathers They Want to Be."

Is this a clumsy attempt to get men off the hook by shifting the blame to women? Much of the public apparently doesn't think so. In a 1995 Virginia Slims American Women's Poll, most people -- especially women -- felt that men weren't doing enough to help with housework and child care; yet two-thirds of men and women alike said that in this arena, "women still want to be in charge." Quite a few bona fide feminists agree.

Next Page: Women have to give up some of the power and control

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