{"id":53566,"date":"2013-12-29T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=53566"},"modified":"2014-05-14T14:18:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T19:18:57","slug":"mens-and-womens-gender-ideologies-ideals-and-fallbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/29\/mens-and-womens-gender-ideologies-ideals-and-fallbacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Women Would Rather Divorce Than Be a Housewife"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em>We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. \u00a0Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s some great news. \u00a0The vast majority of young people —\u00a0about 80% of women and 70% of men across all races, classes, and family backgrounds — desire an egalitarian marriage in which both partners share breadwinning, housekeeping, and child rearing. \u00a0The data come from <\/span>Kathleen Gerson<\/a>‘s fabulous 2010 book, <\/span>The Unfinished Revolution<\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In practice, however, egalitarian relationships are difficult to establish. \u00a0Both work and family are “greedy institutions,”\u00a0ones that take up lots of time and energy. \u00a0Many couples find that, once children arrive, it’s impossible for both to do both with equal gusto.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, Gerson asked her respondents what type of family they would like if, for whatever reason, they couldn\u2019t sustain an equal partnership.\u00a0 She discovered that, while men\u2019s and women\u2019s ideals<\/em> are very similar, their fallback positions<\/em> deviate dramatically.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s most common fallback position is to establish a neotraditional division of labor: 70% hope to convince their wives to de-prioritize their careers and focus on homemaking and raising children. \u00a0Women? \u00a0Faced with a husband who wants them to be a housewife or work part-time, almost three-quarters of women say they would choose divorce and raise their kids alone. \u00a0In fact, despite men’s insistence on being breadwinners, women are more likely than men to say they value success in a high-paying career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Look at this absolutely stunning data (matching ideals on the left; clashing fallback positions on the right):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Gerson\u2019s interviewees, Matthew, exemplifies the egalitarian willing to fallback on a neotraditional family form:<\/p>\n

If I could have the ideal world, I\u2019d like to have a partner who\u2019s making as much as I am\u2014someone who\u2019s ambitious and likes to achieve.\u00a0 [But] if it can\u2019t be equal, I would be the breadwinner and be there for helping with homework at night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is what women think of that:<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s such a leftover from the fifties and did everything for my father. I\u2019m not planning to fall into that trap. I\u2019m really not willing to take that from any guy at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, what appears to be a happy convergence between men\u2019s and women\u2019s ideals \u2014 both are egalitarians \u2014 can turn into an intractable situation: a man who won\u2019t give up his role as the breadwinner and a woman who would rather do anything than be a housewife.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at\u00a0Ms.<\/a>,\u00a0PolicyMic<\/a>, Footnote<\/a>, and\u00a0The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. \u00a0Enjoy! Here’s some great news. \u00a0The vast majority of young people —\u00a0about 80% of women and 70% of men across all races, classes, and family backgrounds — desire an egalitarian marriage in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":60061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2088,272,76],"class_list":["post-53566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-marriagefamily","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/01\/7.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53566"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62654,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53566\/revisions\/62654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}