Paternity Leaves

Two friends of mine are soon giving birth, and have recently shared with me their plans for parental leave once the child is born.

What is interesting is that both plans are nearly identical, despite a large geographic distance, and different social welfare models.

Both of my friends plan to stay at home with the baby for around 6 months (a minimum sanity period, I find, in the case of sleep deprivation and/or breastfeeding logistics). Both moms then plan to return to work, and the father will take another 6-8 months paternal leave. I find this an ideal plan, as it provides both parents with hands-on experience with an infant, and respect for one of the most rewarding but also strenuous jobs in the world (in my opinion): parenting.

It's of course a luxury to stay at home for such a long period time, and a double luxury for each parent to do so. Many societies pressure moms to return to work very soon after birth, and most societies do not support paternal leave in any way. Nearly all countries that I know of punish parents with (at time substantial) losses in income during parental and in particular paternal leaves.

With the first two of my three kids, I stayed at home for 4-6 months. I then went back to study / work, and our children started daycare for a few hours a day, with my husband covering the rest of the day through partial paternal leave. With my third child, I have been working since my child turned 4 months (albeit from home). We did not have the possibility to take paternal leave this time around, and both of us regret it.

All men who have taken paternal leave that I know of have enjoyed the opportunity immensely. The careers of nearly all suffered temporarily - some had to leave jobs. The parallels to mother's career sacrifices are clear. However, by taking paternity leave, these men have provided opportunities for their wives to return to work, without feeling guilty about not being at home with the infant child. I myself am very grateful to my husband for this opportunity with my first two kids, and hope that more couples consider this aspect of parental leave.

Right Wing Politics and Women

I just shared an election poster from an Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe, successful right wing party) candidate on Facebook. The slogan is "Heimatliebe - statt Marokanerdiebe" ("love of one's home country - instead of Moroccan thieves"). 


I decided to look up what the Freedom Party thinks about women, especially since there was an interesting presidential candidate from the party a while back (Barbara Rosenkranz, who had given birth to 10 children).


Here a few quotes that I found from senior party members (rather freely translated from German):


"A woman is a woman, a man is a man. I reject equalization."


"Homo sapiens has been successful because of the division of labor between men (who hunt) and women (who take care of the home)."


"Many women do not go into politics because they are more interested in fashion, and use their time on their hairdo and cosmetics."

"Men want to be alpha males, they want to lead. If women have a lot of testosterone, they can become leaders in business, or in the women's movement. Most women want to stay at home, though."

"Women, who feel overburdened with a career, children and housework should employ maids. Men do not have time to help, as they have serious jobs."

After writing my past blog entries, these quotes do not make me angry. They make me sad. I do not for one moment believe the world should be the way that the Austrian Freedom Party (or any other right wing party, for that matter) wants it to be. But I do believe that these quotes still reflect how much of society works, right, left, or centre.

Hello, Would you Mind if I Just Talk to your Husband?

I am blessed with a number of friends who have accompanied me since kindergarten and primary school. I couldn't possibly imagine my life without them, and am every day grateful that these people are out there.

I often face a problem with a number of my new friends, though: I would prefer being friends with their husbands. It is not that these people I more recently spend time with are not nice or intelligent people. But place me at a dinner table with them and with their partners, I find myself trying to join the conversation of the men. They discuss politics, the financial crisis, financing loans. Listen to the women: they are discussing where a new fabric is available, which online catalogue is best for buying kids' clothes...

I am lucky to have some very good male friends. But I am finding it increasingly difficult to make new male friends, whereas the number of female potentials seems to be growing exponentially during this child-rearing phase. But trying to meet a husband for "coffee" or "a drink" is, well, complicated. Suggesting this to the wives / moms is not.

Maybe female friendships at this age just take more time to develop? Maybe we start off with, well, "boring" topics, and will become deep, interesting friends for life? Wonderful! But does this mean that the men will always remain just "husbands" and "partners", and will never become stand-alone friends?

A Bit of Identity Politics

The first few blog entries have been written without any qualifications, research, or referencing. Perhaps also with not all that much thinking. My aim is not to get bogged down in long justifications, explanations of counterarguments, or literary citations.

I am very aware that this leads to a simplistic, at times one-sided, often incomplete picture. I am sure that any readers of this blog (at least the ones I have shared it with) are intelligent enough to know that the big picture is always far more complicated, and full of different (often valid) views.

I do, however, want to clarify what I mean with "women" and "we". Ten years ago, when I was reading a lot of postmodern literature for my studies, I would have jumped at such simplification. There is an abundance of gender literature out there, as well as identity literature in general, arguing that identities are blurry and partly socially constructed. I agree with these arguments to some extent. As a "female" (social definition, not the biological definition of "woman"), I often feel that I have more in common with "males" than with other "females". And to take the postmodern argument one step further, I also partly agree that what makes me "female" is to a great extent socially imposed on me (the "other" defines the "us"...).

Bringing this all down to daily, practical life and my past posts: this all doesn't fit. Whatever I feel or however I subjectively try to position myself in the male-female world, I am, at the end of the day, a working mom surrounded by a lot of other part-time working moms and stay-at-home moms. Is this "identity" constructed through circumstances, i.e. our common situation?

More thoughts on this later.

A bit of background analysis

It is a known fact that women are underrepresented (relative to their proportion of the workforce) in several sectors, engineering or technology to name a few. Most women also fail to progress to become managers or leaders.

Putting glass ceilings (as well as quota debates) aside for a moment, I think a behavioral, sociological or even neuro-biological analysis are good starting points here. I don't have any expertise in any of these fields, but have generally been interested in these three fields for a number of years, and have done a small share of reading.

To start with neuro-biology, the main debate is whether we, as humans, are blank slates or genetically and/or evolutionarily conditioned (read Steven Pinker for a crash course on this topic). Could we, as women, be just as interested as men in physics and computing in theory and in practice? Or has biology and/or evolution conditioned us to be interested in other issues, e.g. to better equip us to take care of our children? Or are we just socialized this way, in order to keep us where we are? I'd like to believe in the blank slate theory, but a lot of research tends to point to at least some degree of predetermination.

Sociologically, the question is how do we deal with different interests, ways of dealing with issues, etc. Do we follow our biological instinct (if there is one)? Do we follow rigid social expectations? Are we equipped with the right strategies and tools to go against the flow, if needed?

A behavioral analysis would be a combination of the above, focusing on our interests, but also looking at what may condition these interests (e.g. legal or societal norms that restrict choices). I already mentioned the Economist's article "Nudge nudge, think think" in a previous post, but I think this type of analysis is key to moving forward. If not in opening up new fields to women (maybe we're simply not interested?), at least to remove barriers that keep us from progressing (which I think most of us would be interested in, or?).