"Intensive parenting norms," Calarco says, still "push women to put their children ahead of their careers. In the workforce, that makes it harder for women to compete with men for top positions, because they're seen as less committed to their jobs."
Dads basically get a free pass. When he became a parent, journalist Matt Yglesias found himself universally praised any time he held his infant son without killing him. It was as though even the smallest parental labors he made were seen as going above and beyond.
"No," he wrote. "I'm not babysitting this morning, I'm parenting."
In a pandemic that's ruthlessly targeted the most vulnerable, all this only compounds existing inequalities.
In their papers, my students noted that children from low-income families are disproportionately falling behind in school now, which could limit their social mobility over the course of their lives. Without school and daycare, for instance, women farmworkers are finding themselves forced to bring their children with them to work.
Many of my students are intelligent, motivated women with ambitious career plans. It's painful to see it dawn on them that their desire for a family will force them to choose between giving up opportunities or working at home after they work at work.
Social norms take time to change, but policies don't have to. My students want gender equality, but they aren't going to get it until we improve our social safety net for parents.
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