More Revolutionary Than a Woman Being CEO of Every Company on the Planet

More often than not, when one brings up the topic of equality and equity between women and men, the wage gap is cited. Then the talk is of the need for more women leaders.

People who grasp that numbers and statistics don’t always tell actual stories — rarely, in fact — numbers are not words, not even when spelled out — might be able to discuss the nature of this, and discuss myths and truths and all that’s in between.

So… what about more women leaders in all work and political sectors? Gone are the days when we think of women as being at home, “limited” to caring for children and doing laundry and ironing. In fact, the only friend I know who does ironing, does it while she drinks her wine at the end of the day. Tellingly, she works for a public prosecutors office. Which probably accounts for both wine and ironing.

Women will lead the real revolution, we’ve been told. And so women have left the home to do this. And long daytime hours pass with empty homes now. Others, women invariably (!) care for children in care centers, and parents work in all manners of jobs. And yes, women — and mindful people — are still fighting the gap and for “top” positions. And it is a worthwhile fight indeed.

But imagine

A world that could be. This past year has people discussing what it is to slow and savor. To spend time with family members. And we are reminded of this because there are so many family members and friends we cannot see face-to-face. Let’s grow the vision: imagine a world where compassion rules.

What if

What if this: for every woman in “high”position (we do so love hierarchy, don’t we? We are addicted to the vertical), there was a man who taught children in the primary grades? Or who had a position as children’s librarian? Or had an in-home daycare center… oh, that one made you blanch, didn’t it?

Why?

Can you answer that?

A friend — someone I thought of as progressive, and whose children were young adults at the time of the conversation — once made the comment to me that if one of her children had had a male kindergarten or first grade teacher, she would not have felt comfortable; she would have questioned a man in such a position.

As mom of three boys, who hoped they would have male role models in nurturing roles through early years, the comment made me pause. What assumptions do we make? Again, statistics thrown around DO wield something that looks like evidence… But but but… I want to protest.

How will anything ever change?

If young people — all young people — grew up with men in such positions, with fathers who take paternity leave and spend real time with them — not always the so-called “quality” time, but times of soothing through stomach flu, demonstrating the details of what it takes to vacuum the living room, and the joy of grocery shopping, who cooks dinners and bakes cakes, and takes over the left hand page of the coloring book as the child works on the right… you get the picture. What would our society look like, if this were the reality?

For most children, it’s not until they play sports, and have a coach, that they experience a male in such a role. And then if they are girls, they probably have a female coach.

Dream big

Think about it: for every highly-paid female in a top role, a male in a role of nurturing, with whatever pay exists for that position. (Can we STOP the fixation on pay? On accumulating Stuff? On “growth”? What IS growth?)

And get on to the human…?

How did we get here?

If money and upward mobility was not on the table, what would your life look like? What decisions would you make? How would you live differently? How would you parent and caregive differently, and/or expect others to do so?

How is it that taking care of others has become so marginalized in our culture? Whether children, aging folks, or those with needs that require care, whether in the home or institution — it doesn’t matter who or where: SOMEHOW nurturing is seen as “less than.” Yet, given the alarming issues of mental health… Really, are we not making that connection? Caring for others, teaching them, nurturing, should be the most respected form of work.

This is not “women’s work.” This is joyful task for all to take on, and with honor.

No?

Why not? We have some biases that we do not talk about, deep and underlying so much.

Prisons are populated with men; men do the majority of violent crime. Most pedophiles are male… I could go on. We know this. (My comment box may well fill with such stats.) Another question — but it would take a book to explore — what is the collective price of asking men (for the most part, historically, though that too is changing) to go out into the world and kill and maim in the name of peace/war for centuries…? And then come home…?

When do we look at biases, and how do we look, and how might we change the cycle? If we can free women from the negatives of being in the home when they do not want to be, if we can try to change the financial and legal realities for them to be freed of what has often chained them in the past, what are the equivalents for men?

It’s tricky, isn’t it? It feels like something more complex than the legalities of equality, and the finances; this would eat right into our ways of thinking and perceiving. Our assumptions.

We would all have to be on board for such drastic change. But think of the societal rewards.

It has taken generations to move women to places they need to be. And even more time is needed. Sometimes we’ve been patient about that, and at other times — necessarily — impatient. But what is in the way of the type of change I am speaking of?

A story of underwire

My father-in-law was an upholsterer by trade. He loved to work with vintage furniture, creating piped-edging and working around beautifully finished carved wood detail, shaping the heavy brocades, creating covered buttons, working with his hands. His spouse, my mother-in-law, was a rather well-endowed woman, and the owner of a small number of costly brassieres — the only word adequate to describe the twinned life-boats that housed her mammaries daily.

I’ll never forget the sight of my father-in-law, with one of his upholsterer’s enormous curved needles in hand, and thread; he was mending one of my mother-in-law’s brassieres that had — once again — sprung its under-wire. The patience in his face as he pushed the wire back into place, and mended, and he showed me where he had folded over the fabric so that the wire and the end of the wire would not cause irritation or pain. I’d only ever seen that particular type of patience on my mother’s face, as she drew an errant eyelash out of one of our eyes, or needled a sliver out of a foot. To see this on a man’s face was a revelation to me. It was an act of care, and an act that recognized his skill set.

Healthy men

It’s a catch-22 — the where to begin. But to begin with recognizing that there are healthy men in our world, and to begin to nurture boys in ways that will foster their nurturing. “Nurturing” male does not — should not — mean some iteration of female. But what does it mean?

I can hear the protests now… the comment box filling! But please, for a few minutes, just think on the possibilities, and grow a lens to renew how you look at the men and boys — or the self — in your life.

—

Previously Published on medium

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often

Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything

—

Photo credit: by Juliane Liebermann for Unsplash

The post More Revolutionary Than a Woman Being CEO of Every Company on the Planet appeared first on The Good Men Project.