Examining Gender Stereotypes in New Work/ Family Reconciliation Policies

Rangita de Silva de Alwis, Wellesley College

Abstract

Examining Gender Stereotypes in New Work/ Family Reconciliation Policies: The Creation of a New Paradigm for Egalitarian Legislation

This paper examines numerous laws that have adopted the dual earner/dual career models, thereby transcending distinctions based on gender. This model celebrates and privileges care giving by both men and women by placing it at the heart of work family reconciliation policies, thus beginning to dismantle many historically embedded gender stereotypes and allotting the special treatment that is traditionally offered to mothers to both men and women who choose to perform child caring duties. This paper advances the notion that new laws and policies must be recreated in the image of both men and women as child care givers. When we celebrate the value of care-giving, cooperation, and responsibility, we should celebrate the responsibility of both sexes to fill caretaking and nurturing roles. Part I of this paper will show how these policies can have the effect of advancing women’s employment opportunities and engaging both men and women in care giving. Part II of this paper looks critically at some comparative norms concerning women and their confinement to the falsely perceived primary role of caregiving. It examines these attitudes in relation to their pervasiveness, emergence, and negative outcomes to both men and women in the public sphere. This is done is an effort to show how gendered roles resulting from pervasive stereotypes can be restructured by the law.

This paper analyzes through a comparative law lens a paradigm shift that must take place to restructure the workplace to allow fathers as well as mothers the opportunity to perform and compete equally in the workplace. Both women and men should be able to advance in the public sphere and undertake traditional care giving roles. Women have long entered the market and men are increasingly playing an equal role in care giving. Translating these realities into the language of feminist theory, this generational shift means that the time is ripe to challenge the masculine norms that frame market work. The provision of parental care is not only about equal opportunities in the workplace but it is also about equal care giving opportunities for both men and women. It is important to deconstruct the image of the traditional care giver and the ideal worker in market work and recreate the worker in a gender neutral image who has to both work full times in the public and private spheres. Family friendly policies that help balance these roles advance the full citizenship of both men and women. The journey to gender empowerment must allow women to compete equally with men in the labor market and men the right to care for their children and families. Only then will men and women enjoy full citizenship in the family and in the public sphere.