In Dorothy Roberts' article, "The Absent Black Father," she does an excellent job of revealing the ways in which race shapes the debate concerning absent fathers in America. Making Black men symbols of fatherlessness automatically brands it as a "depraved condition" and offers a convenient explanation for problems that plague Black communities. Rather than recognizing the institutionalized racism that contributes to the cycle of poverty in many Black communities and welfare policies that discourage fathers from staying in the home, popular ideas tend to blame the immorality of Black family structures. The individualistic American culture has a very strong component of self-blame, which is especially applied in the case of welfare benefits. Roberts points out that the pervasive matriarchal family structure in Black communities is also often blamed for the "pathology" of Black communities. Between racism and sexism, the Black community is severely marginalized. Roberts discusses the ways in which the welfare system has contributed over the years to pushing fathers out of the home and essentially creating this issue of "fatherlessness" and "the absent Black father." She explains, "many states granted aid only if a parent of the needy child was continually absent from the home, denying payments if the child's father or "substitute father" lived there" (p. 154). Laws such as these directly pushed fathers out of many poor homes that needed welfare benefits. While new welfare laws are working to reverse this trend, they are still not recognizing the root causes of poverty and fatherlessness. Penalizing poor mothers for not marrying is just as problematic. Ultimately, it is extremely unlikely that marriage or child support payments will eradicate the poverty of Black children. Also, many men being chased for child support will simply be paying most of the money back to the state to "repay" the welfare benefits that were given to their children in their supposed absence. Roberts explains that the assumption of the absent father is often inaccurate, "many presumably "absent" Black fathers actually play an important role in child rearing. Many Black men stay closely tied to their children even when they are not married to the mother or are unable to provide financial support....poor African-American, officially absent fathers actually had more contact with their children and gave them more informal support than did White, middle-class absent fathers" (p. 153). Many of these men do not want to abandon their children and do wish to be in their children's lives. They are "absent" because they are not recorded as paying child support. Child support can be nearly impossible for an unemployed or incarcerated man to pay. Mothers often try to protect the fathers of their children because they understand the difficulties they face. Unfortunately, the ways in which they have to go about protecting these men can be damaging for them - many women claim they do not know who the father of their child is in order to protect him. This claim lends further fuel to the stereotype fire surrounding the Black community. The extremely high rates of Black men in American jails also contributes to the issue of fatherlessness. Again, the cycle of poverty and institutionalized racism that is more likely to put Black men behind bars are largely to blame for this phenomenon - but Americans are very reluctant to admit to this. An incarcerated man cannot make money to support his children and even when he is released he is extremely unlikely to be able to get a decent job because of his record. Unemployment and frustrations as a result of unemployment often also lead to incarceration. All of these factors render many of these men unmarriageable in the eyes of mothers - leading back to the matriarchal system of child-rearing, including vast networks of "othermothering." The fact that women largely rule Black communities further stigmatizes them because of sexism. A system run by women must automatically be somehow diseased and wrong. Roberts concludes that "the correlation between race and poverty overshadows the correlation betweenfatherlessness and poverty" and "racial inequality - not fatherlessness - is the leading cause of Black children's deprivation. Pretending that Black poverty is the fault of absent Black fathers provides a defense against addressing America's institutionalized racism" (p. 157). It is extremely interesting to examine the differences between the way America views white, middle-class single mothers as compared to Black single mothers of any class. In fact, currently in the media there has been an outburst of celebrities having children - with or without fathers present. An unmarried and pregnant Kourtney Kardashian is all over the tabloids - painted in a mostly positive light concerning her illegitimate child. What is seen as a pathology within the Black community is glorified in the celebrity world. In reality, the fact of single mothering does not matter nearly as much as who the single mother herself is. Roberts final points, I believe, are extremely important ones to recognize. She explains that these stereotypes surrounding Black family structures "pretend that half of Black children are born into poverty because their fathers are not around, not because their fathers are jobless. It lets America off the hook for failing to construct a system of welfare (in the broad sense) that ensures the well-being of all its citizens" and (most importantly, in my opinion) "It is part of the age-old trick of convincing people that the problems of disempowered groups result from their own bad habits and not from an unequal social structure" (p. 158). This assertion, resulting from the myth of the American "self-made man" and the myth of the "American dream" will continue to plague our society and prevent us from any real, tangible change until we can move past it and understand it for what it is - a myth.
Francine Deutsch. 2002. "Halving it All: The Mother and Mr. Mom." Families at Work: Expanding the Boundaries. Edited by Naomi Gerstel, Dan Clawson, and Robert Zussman. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Francine Deutsch's study of double-earner couples, mostly involved in shift-work in order to split childcare responsibilities as evenly as possible, was extremely interesting in several important ways. She interviewed dual-earner couples who felt that their household responsibilities were evenly or almost evenly split. In her discussions with these couples, it was often very clear that while many working class shift-working couples did split responsibilities far more evenly than the average middle-class couple, most of these families still believed strongly in the "breadwinner" model and, regardless of actual income or hours worked, most still viewed the father as the "breadwinner" and the head of the household. I was intrigued by the way these couples behaved so progressively but still believed so strongly in these "traditional" family structure ideologies - particularly as compared to middle-class couples who may claim to be progressive but in actuality have a far more uneven splitting of responsibilities. Deutsch's study examined primarily dual-income working class couples who worked shift work and avoided paying for outside childcare. These couples all operated on different systems and it was fascinating to see the creative solutions they came up with. The fact that these men jokingly referred to themselves as "Mr. Mom" shows their feelings regarding the "women's work" that they do and the fact that they see it as strange or different that they (as men) are the ones doing it. These fathers are far more involved in their children's lives than many middle or upper class couples that employ the traditional "breadwinner" model or even dual earning couples who do not do shift-work and use outside childcare options. Deutsch points out that "on average, the alternating-shift fathers spent 28.5 hours a week in solo care of their children, as compared with the 14.5 hours spent by middle-class equally sharing fathers" (p. 116). In particular, these men were able to become far more in tune with their children's emotions and the details of their everyday lives. In one example, Deutsch explains how a father initially blows off his preteen daughter's issue with a friend at school, but then realizes she needs to talk about it and instead sits her down to discuss her feelings about the issue. These fathers are able to spend important time with their children that many more traditional "breadwinning" fathers miss out on. To me, this was a very important point. It was heartwarming to hear these fathers talk about their children and the deeper relationships they have been able to develop with them. The breadwinning model seems to have been very limiting as far as fathers spending quality time with children. All of this seems to go back to traditional gender stereotypes that assume fathers do not have the emotional capacity to properly raise children. Clearly, if fathers are given enough time with their children, they are able to develop strong relationships and become important sources of advice and comfort. It was also interesting to see the reasons these working class couples gave for avoiding outside childcare. The cost of childcare is clearly a huge problem for many families, but surprisingly the cost was not the primary reason most of these couples gave. There appeared to be a huge stigma against outside childcare and many parents expressed a lot of fear about leaving their children with someone else, one father explained, "I don't let people outside my family watch my kids...You don't know these other people...I'd just as soon take care of her than let some stranger take her" (p. 118). While there were some of the fears shared by the middle class as far as instilling values in their children, "I want her to learn from us," as one father states, there is also a lot of fear about inadequate childcare and children getting hurt while being watched by someone else. Deutsch notes that this also may be an issue of control for working class families. While most middle class families simply see daycare as a way to provide care for part of the day, working class families are more likely to feel that they are losing control of the way in which their child is raised. Essentially, one mother sums it up best, "we basically didn't trust anyone else" (p. 120). Deutsch finds that most of these couples, while behaving outside of traditional gender identities, are "clinging to gender identities" and "there is more support for traditional gender ideology within the working class than among more highly educated groups in the United States" (p. 125). Deutsch goes into depth with regards to these parents' views of gender identity. Deutsch notes that these families work hard to keep three traditional ideas intact: the father is the breadwinner, the mother does not derive a primary sense of identity from work (she works outside the home solely because of financial necessity), and the mother is the primary parent. These ideas are so firmly ingrained that one father describes that he worried, "if he did not succeed in conventional breadwinning terms, ultimately his son would be ashamed of him" (p. 125). These men derived a strong sense of identity from their created "breadwinner" roles and their self-esteem was strongly rooted in their idea that they are the ones providing for their family. Men who had been laid off claimed, "I am supposed to be the one to support my family," and, while laid off, "I had no self-esteem. I felt terrible about myself" (p. 125). I have definitely observed this sentiment in many of my friends' fathers and even in my own step-father while laid off from work. Many men equate their idea of success with the ability to support their family financially. However, most of the working class families in this study had mothers working equal, if not more, hours outside the home than the men, and sometimes these women actually made more money. Despite the actual monetary facts of the situation, Deutsch explains that "the parents stressed men's breadwinning roles by treating the father's job as the more important job in the family" (p. 126). I found it fascinating that it did not matter how much money the women actually made or how many hours they put in, it all depended on the way in which the family viewed the income. These families valued the idea that the man is the head of the household and went to great lengths to make it seem that way, "despite the woman's greater earning capacity in some families, men in the alternating-shift families are still recognized as the principle breadwinners" (p. 126). One family even had a woman who had the ability to bring in more money than her husband because she earned a higher hourly rate, but they instead had the man work more hours and keep her at home for more hours despite the fact that she could bring in more money had they switched and she worked her husband's hours. It is absolutely amazing how traditional gender ideologies controlled so many aspects of these families' lives.
One of the most interesting and simultaneously concerning aspects of the article for me was Deutsch's discussion of the men and women's feelings about the women working outside the home as well as the man and how they would feel if they were in a different financial position. The discrepancies between the husband's feelings and the wives' opinions were quite large. In essentially every one of the families, the husbands articulated their wishes for their wives to be able to stay at home full-time and the wives explained that they enjoyed their work outside the home and would like to stay employed even if their finances did not require it. Fortunately for them, most of these families will not have to make that decision and can continue pretending as they choose and these underlying conflicts will never have to come to the surface. Deutsch points out that "the economic necessity for two incomes allows the men to ignore other reasons that their wives work, reasons that would contradict their traditional ideas about family life" (p. 128). Fathers also seemed to hold strong beliefs concerning their wives' mothering skills and truly felt that their wives were the better parent. Many of these men at first were resistant to their equal roles and the fact that they had to do much of the "mother's work" such as baths and preparing meals, but ultimately most men enjoyed the extra time they were able to spend with their children and the closer relationships they developed with their children. This study shows many of the positive results of a more even distribution of work within a household, but it also shows just how pervasive and powerful traditional gender ideologies and stereotypes concerning traditional roles can be - even within a family that is acting in opposition to them. Deutsch's article brings up multiple questions concerning what is "fair" and what makes the most sense as far as solutions to some of these work-family issues facing Americans. More affordable childcare is often touted as a possible solution, but many of the families interviewed did not avoid childcare simply for financial reasons. This article left me with the question - are these families truly progressive? Is this the future of combining work and family? It was disappointing to me that these families were unable to see past gender stereotypes. I also wondered about their relationships with each other within their marriage, because it was clear that all of these arrangements were about finances and child-rearing - not spending time together as a couple and keeping romance in a marriage alive. While these families were inspirational in the sense that they showed the intense and emotional relationships that fathers are capable of having with children and that fathers are more than capable of helping with household work - I still do believe we have a long way to go and other solutions to the work-family disconnect need to be found.
Gerson, Kathleen. 1993. "Introduction" and "The Myth of Masculinity." No Man's Land, Ch. 1 & 9.
Kathleen Gerson sums up the most important point of her paper in her statement, "Just as changes in race relations involve whites as well as people of color and changes in class relations involve the economically privileged as well as the economically disadvantaged, a gender revolution must include men as well as women" (p. 4). She explains that as the economy and gender relations have changed throughout the years, "it is no longer clear what it means to be a man" (p. 5). She discusses how important it is to recognize the differences between men and their experiences rather than lumping them together as an overall group. For her study, she gathered together men from all different backgrounds and walks of life and who have ended up in many different positions with regards to family and work. Unfortunately, in the introduction and the chapter we were assigned, she does very little by ways of the actual results of these studies or of her interviews with these men. She provides more of an overview of the situations that men face and the importance of striking the delicate balance between "sympathetic understanding of the problems men face and appropriate awareness of their uses and misuses of power" (p. 12) because, in the end, men still are the most dominant and privileged group. However, she does make a good point that while "men as a group may possess disproportionate power and privilege...many individual men do not feel powerful" (p. 13). We saw a little bit of this in Deutsch's interviews with working class men who had been laid off. They derived most of their identity and self-esteem from their paid work, so without it they felt useless. Gerson points out that the multiplicity of roles available to men in today's world creates a lot of confusion for men. When they do not know "what it means to be a man" and there is no role laid out for them to fill, men's ideas of success can be confused and, at times, contradictory. As far as work, men are supposedly slowly being freed from their economic responsibility as primary breadwinner, which was a very constraining role for many men. Unfortunately, most men have not embraced the alternative increased responsibility for household work. So, as women enter the workplace, they still retain many of their household duties and are working serious overtime. Gerson claimed she found very little connections between class and gender role beliefs, though Deutsch's article might argue differently, and in the few quotes from interviews she did include, a man employed as a physician discussed his feeling of equality between men and women, while a man employed as a park maintenance worker explained, "my father ruled the house...my father answered to no one. The men were men in those days" (p. 259). While it may be a generalization, there does seem to be a bit of difference in opinion along class lines. Gerson also points out that "college-educated men were slightly more likely to develop an involved outlook" when it came to child-rearing (p. 261). She, however, very much emphasizes "how circumstances shape men's parental choices, either evoking or suppressing involvement" because the men she interviewed showed very little patterns as far as their parenting choices - some were more involved or less because of marital status, work situations, or any number of other personal circumstances that changed their parenting styles, even between their children from the same woman (p. 261). She also discusses men with a primary breadwinning outlook and their participation in the "stalled revolution"..."in which men remain aloof from domestic work even as women become increasingly involved in paid work" (p. 261). Gerson discusses masculine culture, male dominance, the male job crisis, the rise of committed employment among women, and the alternative lifestyles involving marriage and parenthood and how all of these factors impact men's life decisions. She makes some interesting arguments, particularly when pointing out some of the economic factors that have impacted the decline of the "breadwinning" model alongside the cultural factors. Unfortunately, her ultimate conclusions essentially point out the confusion all of this creates and does not suggest many constructive solutions. However, all of her data supports her primary point that men are in a tough place in our current society and as long as they remain in this position, it will be difficult for women to make strides without them. She also wants to hammer the point that every man (and every woman) is different and the circumstances of their own lives will be the strongest determinants of the direction in which their life goes. I do believe that this is important to keep in mind, because sociology can often be accused of generalizing in the interest of explaining certain phenomena. However, I also think it is important to look at some of the cultural and social backdrops of these individual situations and the way in which these situations are shaped as a result of social situations. For example, if we simply look at each individual man and his life decisions in the first article, "The Absent Black Father," we would fail to see the structural racial implications of an individual man's incarceration and subsequent absent fatherhood. As Marilyn Frye describes in her discussion of oppression, it is like looking at a bird cage. If you simply examine one singular bar on a bird cage, you will not understand how the bird cage works. You need to see how all of the bars interlock together to create the cage in order to understand how the cage traps the bird. Gerson's discussion of masculinity was informative and interesting, but I think that more of the book would need to be read in order to understand her argument.
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