Teaching Fellow in Public Law and Human Rights, Durham Law School.
Comments welcome via Twitter: @KyleLMurray92 or email: k.l.murray@durham.ac.uk
The recent Women & Equalities Committee report on paternity leave, while making welcome proposals, is revealing of a fundamental problem with the way we frame issues of gender (in)equality negatively affecting men. In this post, Kyle talks about the importance of framing the dealing with men’s issues not just as parasitic upon women’s rights, but as valuable pursuits in themselves.
“We should take measures to break the glass ceiling and improve the representation of women in top positions in the workplace – this would relieve the considerable pressures on men, who we know suffer breakdowns and depression from their workload, with sometimes disastrous consequences”.
If this headline sounds as though it misses the point and belittles the harms done to women from the inequality it seeks to challenge, it is because it does. If it sounds as though it risks leaving the attitudes leading to these inequalities unchallenged – and therefore recommends strategies likely to be of limited effectiveness – again, it is argued, that is because it does. If readers are viewing it with a sense of disbelief, it is because it is fictitious. But its problematic framing of the issue of gender inequality is, I argue, not too far from what we have recently seen in discussions surrounding paternity leave and the difficulties faced by fathers. The recently-released Women & Equalities Committee (WEC) report – ‘Fathers in the Workplace’ (20 March 2018) – and its presentation in the media, is a prime example; framing issues of gender inequality and challenges facing men primarily within the paradigm of advancing women’s equality and rights.
Drawing on these developments, and other examples, it will be argued that it is symptomatic of a wider problem with the way we frame gender issues in society. Gender-based issues impacting negatively upon men, and approaches attempting to resolve them, to the extent that they are talked about, are often framed as parasitic upon women’s rights. We see this trend in a range of gender equality policies and initiatives – both domestic and international – and other areas of discourse in society. Indeed, it will be suggested that it goes to the very heart of academic discourse surrounding gender, feminism and masculinities, with the consequence that specific challenges faced by men are downplayed.
The Paternity Leave Issue
The WEC report is the latest development in the legal overhaul of parental leave. Paid statutory paternity leave (of 2 weeks) was introduced in 2003. The scheme of “shared parental leave” – whereby a mother who ends her maternity leave early can “donate” or share the remainder of the entitlement with the father, or other parent – came into effect in 2015. But there remains a strikingly low take-up of such leave by fathers. As the WEC report notes, take-up of shared parental leave by eligible fathers is known to be under 10%. That may be rather optimistic. Some estimates put the figure as low as 2% or even 1%.
A number of explanations have been offered. Some fathers simply cannot afford to take shared parental leave due to the low levels of pay. This is also a reason levels of take-up of the paternity leave scheme are not actually known – because levels of pay are so low that many employers do not seek reimbursement from the Government. Others report a cultural stigma surrounding men taking time off work to care for their children, an issue fuelled by stereotypes of masculinity and the gender roles of men and women, both in the workplace, and society more generally. As detailed in the WEC report, while many fathers do want to take leave to perform a more active role in the upbringing of their children, they have reported coming up against a “macho” workplace culture, assumptions that mothers were the primary carer, and mocking from colleagues, all of which have been identified as making fathers feel uncomfortable in requesting leave. These attitudes and gender-based stereotypes are evident in society more generally, with fathers reporting that services, such as schools, nurseries and healthcare services, often treat them very much as secondary – even where they are in fact the primary carer. Indeed, the WEC report itself at one point slips into referring to fathers as “second parents” (see para 25).
In short: cultural stereotypes and attitudes leave many men feeling marginalised, ignored, or even belittled when it comes to childcare and parental leave. This is problematic not only for the harm it does to the self-image and expression of fathers in their caring role, but also for its impact on the household division of labour and family life. The benefits of men taking on more childcare for family stability, father-child relationships, child development, and fathers’ health have been noted. As a result, the WEC report’s pressing of the need to better support fathers in balancing their parental and work roles, and for a cultural shift when it comes to fathers and childcare is very welcome (short summaries of the report can be found here and here).
Shifting the Focus: When Paternity Leave Became a Women’s Issue
However, the presentation of this much-needed report has been problematic. Given the subject matter, one would expect the main line to be the challenges and disadvantages faced by fathers in this context. But that is not the case. For example, the Telegraph coverage is centred on the narrative of dealing with the inequality of paternity leave for fathers in order to improve the position of women in other areas, such as the gender pay gap. ‘Give dads more pay and paternity leave to fight gender pay gap, MPs demand’, the headline runs. The headline image used is of a “March of the Mummies” event, campaigning for working mothers. Other reports follow suit: ‘Why Fatherhood holds the key to solving the gender pay gap’ (Personnel Today); ‘MPs call for 12 weeks of paternity leave to address gender pay gap’ (The Guardian). The main narrative very quickly puts women at the fore. The rights of men to equal parental leave – the need to deal with a gender issue negatively and directly impacting upon men – are thus framed as parasitic upon the rights and needs of women. The suggestion is that we should tackle the challenges faced by fathers not to resolve the inequality and negative impact facing men, but instrumentally for women. This is not just an issue of how the media has taken the report; this is how it has been sold to them. As Committee Chair, Maria Miller put it in interview: ‘until we get it right for dads we can’t get it right for mums’ (see The Guardian article above). Likewise, the Committee’s social media campaign – while beginning with the observation that men increasingly want to take a more active role in childcare but do not feel able to – instantly moves to the issue of women’s disadvantage (the first highlighted headline is ‘This contributes to the gender pay gap’).
Is this not merely an issue of emphasis? Is it not a positive that taking action on fathers in the workplace could also alleviate challenges facing women? Is this not a reason for pursuing that action? It is. But emphasis and language are important: presenting that benefit as the primary reason for action – as opposed to simply another, no doubt valuable, reason – is misguided. It is misguided for three connected reasons – both symbolic and practical.
First, it detracts from the main issue at hand – the inequality faced by men in the area of parental leave and parenthood. Second, this belittles the harms faced by men from the challenges in this area, noted above and throughout the report. The implication is that these harms, while real enough, are simply not enough to spark action. They are not the main concern. This is not only unfair and diminishing, but thirdly, this detraction and this belittling risks jeopardising attempts to resolve the issue of parental leave – such that their effectiveness in achieving good outcomes (whichever benefit is emphasised) is needlessly put at risk. As seen, a significant factor at play is a negative culture and stereotypes surrounding men as parents. Childcare is not seen as something that men do, not masculine. Recommending that fathers are given more rights in parental leave in order to benefit women does little, if anything, to challenge these attitudes. The concern is not to give men the rights and childcare responsibilities attached to fatherhood as fatherhood – as male parents. How can we expect to advance the much needed cultural shift surrounding men and fatherhood if we almost instantly turn the issue into a focus on women?
A Wider Issue: Men’s Rights as Parasites
The problem extends beyond just the parental leave context. There is a more general lack of academic, national and international discourse dealing with the challenges currently faced by men and boys, outside the framework of advancing women’s rights.
The CPS currently categorises and publishes all cases of serious sexual offences, and domestic abuse – even those involving men as victims – as “violence against women and girls” (VAWG). This is not only an issue of accuracy; given high rates of underreporting by male victims and the social stigma surrounding these crimes, this erasure can only be harmful. Furthermore, while the CPS recognises that these problems stem from the way ‘society views masculinity’, categorising men and boys as victims of violence against women and girls is hardly likely to help with the negative attitudes surrounding male victims and their masculinity. This also has implications for how we view femininity and women; the message of women as victims is reinforced, even where there may not be a woman involved at all.
Returning to the Women & Equalities Committee, its very title and mission statement is telling of the way we look and gender and equality – fitting men’s and more general equality issues into a female-centred paradigm. Indeed, the Committee was created in order ‘to raise issues that are a priority for women and to review how women are impacted by Government policy’ (Women in Parliament Report). Internationally, the picture is much the same. Initiatives aimed at enhancing gender equality are framed with an almost exclusive focus on women and girls. The UN Sustainable Development Goal, no.5 – “Gender Equality” – is phrased as ‘[e]nding all forms of discrimination against women and girls’. The titles of two major Conventions on enhancing gender equality (Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention, and the UN’s CEDAW) almost speak for themselves. These measures are valuable, and necessary, but the current framework risks overlooking, or downplaying, specific challenges and gender-based harms faced by men. As the UNFPA notes, ‘there are disadvantages and costs to men accruing from patterns of gender difference’, and ‘[s]ocietal norms and conceptions of masculinity’.
The downplaying of all this is evident at the very heart of the academic literature on gender studies. Here, masculinity studies is often defined in relation to feminism: pro-feminist vs anti-feminist (Chris Beasley’s typology of masculinities scholarship along these lines in his Gender and Sexuality (2005), esp. p188, is a good example). To the extent that there is political activism on men’s issues this is often seen as a negative fringe (not without cause, perhaps, given the nature of many vocal Men’s Rights Activists, seeking to reassert, strengthen, or even celebrate harmful forms of traditional masculinity). So there is a lack of mainstream discourse challenging the notion and construction of masculinity for the sometimes specific effect this has on men. As above, something is lost as a result.
Conclusion
The negative stereotypes, pressures, and harmful attitudes against men need to be tackled also because of the harm they do to men, rather than solely, or mainly, because this is seen to have a negative impact on women. Masculinity and expectations of men are no less constructed than femininity and expectations of women, and their influences upon men are multifaceted, significant, and often problematic. The language in this area is important. With this in mind, we need to reflect critically on how we frame the issues facing men, and do so in linguistically appropriate terms. Framing and dealing with issues directly and negatively affecting men as parasitic upon women’s rights, as opposed to valuable pursuits in themselves, is symbolically problematic, practically counter-productive, and perhaps even harmful. This is especially so in a context where men and boys currently face a number of significant challenges; paternity leave and fatherhood; the underreporting and stigma surrounding male victims of sexual assault and domestic violence; the disproportionately high rate of male suicide; that prostate cancer has now overtaken breast cancer as the third biggest cancer-based killer, to name but a few.
The author would like to thank Tara Beattie for her, as ever, helpful and strikingly on point criticisms of an earlier version of this post.
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