4 TIPS TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUITY AT HOME, EVEN DURING A PANDEMIC

Just one year ago, dads were as likely as moms to crowd the halls of elementary school at morning drop- off and wash burp cloths at the laundromat.

Then came the pandemic. With schools moved online and child care programs closing, women all over the country began exiting the workforce at alarming rates. As school sputtered back to a start, several local moms confided that they had cut back on work to help with remote learning. Each of us had made different calculations in determining that we, rather than our partners, should scale back our paid work to be more present at home, our reasons ranging from “he makes more money” to “I’m more patient with remote” to “my job got axed.”

However sound the logic, what message were our kids gleaning from this sudden shift? Might they be learning that, when push comes to shove, women’s paid work matters less than men’s?

Marjorie Rhodes, a psychology professor at New York University and director of the Conceptual Development and Social Cognition Lab, said it was reasonable to assume that children of all ages are noticing “the increasing gender division of labor during COVID.” Research suggests that if left to their own devices, children may make sense of it in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes, like that moms are better at taking care of kids and dads work to support the family. That, in turn, can shape kids’ identities and life choices. Men raised by employed moms, meanwhile, spent more time each week on housework and “more time with children, more time caring for others in their family,” says Kathleen Mcginn, a professor at Harvard Business School.

About 865,000 women left the workforce between August and September as remote schools started back up, a number four times that of men who left during the same time frame. In October, men gained back those losses, but only about half of women returned. “We’re reinvesting in a very regressive narrative” where women work for free so that men can work for money, says Mara Bolis, associate director of women’s economic rights at Oxfam America.

1. Map it out.

Mcginn recommends that parenting partners start with the basics: Talk about how they’re dividing household tasks. Most parents avoid such discussions. But those who have been most successful in having equitable divisions of household responsibility in recent months are using “old- fashioned negotiation approaches,” like mapping out time spent cooking meals or supervising remote learning on whiteboard and calendars.

2. Assign chores.

Rhodes suggests giving children unpaid chores, a solution that helps parents, too. Research shows that boys who engage in traditionally female stereotypical activities like helping with cooking, cleaning and caring for younger siblings are more likely to do those things as teenagers and adults.

3. Talk with kids.

Rhodes and Andrei Cimpian, a psychology professor at New York University, recommend talking with children in an age- appropriate manner about what they’re observing, and why it’s happening.

Numerous studies suggest that if parents leave children to their own devices to make sense of things like “Why are there more men in science than women?” they will rely on what Cimpian calls “shortcut” explanations that attribute “inherent” qualities to groups of people, such as “Women don’t like science.”

For older kids, this can be an important opportunity to talk about how women’s contributions have historically been undervalued.

4. Nip stereotypes in the bud.

The idea is to use explanations to “disrupt” the belief that the world is naturally organized by gender, says Rhodes. “One thing we have found is that if they really early on have this idea that gender organizes what you can wear, and what you can play with, and how you’re expected to behave, then it’s easier for them to believe that gender also determines your academic potential.” So the goal should be to prevent gender stereotypes from developing at all ages, she says, adding, “And that’s true regardless of the pandemic.”