From the Department of Fuck You, We’re Totally Winning:
Men and women are increasingly equally likely to value both work and family.
According to a Pew research study, two-thirds of women say that career success is one of the most important things or very important in their lives, while 59% of men say that career success is one of the most important things or very important. That’s right: women are more likely to prioritize their career. Up the ass, Success Myth! Fuck you, Patti Stanger and your “men care more about careers than women do because BIOLOGY, therefore if you’re a successful woman you’re just asking for a breakup.” If you ask about being successful in a high-paying profession it’s even closer– 51% of women value being successful in a high-paying career or profession, while 49% of men do. (The missing couple of percent, presumably, prioritize their career success in careers where they make less than minimum wage. Like me blogging!)
Gratifyingly, marriage and parenthood are even closer. 94% of women say being a good parent is very important or one of the most important things to them, compared to 91% of men. 84% of women say a good marriage is one of the most important or very important to them, compared to 83% of men.
“Hey, Ozy,” you might say, “there are still more women who care about the parenting and the marriage than men!” But the evidence appears to suggest that women are more likely to care about everything than men do. I don’t know why. Maybe all those complaints about slacker dudes have some truth to them? (Between one and seven percentage points of truth, to be specific.) Or maybe men are more likely to prioritize one thing: for instance, maybe there are more men that just prioritize parenthood and marriage or just prioritize career, while the women are busy attempting to prioritize everything.
There’s also the question of how this gets implemented in practice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of families in which the dad definitely wants to be a good parent… after all, he babysits the kids once a week! There’s still a risk that in practice most of the traditionally female tasks will fall to the women, while men (possibly because of the wage gap) will end up working outside the home. Nevertheless, this historic level of equality in what people value is great news for smashing the patriarchy… although maybe not so good for me not being out of a job.