I often get asked: What else can we do to level the playing field for women? There’s only one answer: Men need to get pregnant.
I’m serious about this. That’s because we need to spend more time thinking about the role of men in women’s progress. Not to say that preaching equal opportunity hasn’t helped, but take a look at what’s happened to working women.
Today, more women graduate from college than men. Female students make up nearly half of the law schools and medical schools. Young women on average earn just about the same amount of money as young men. In fact, in New York City, female millennials actually earn more than their male peers.
What’s the problem here? The X chromosomes are smarter — and fiercer — than ever. Yet when women start to have children, they change. They take time off, reduce hours, drop out completely to become stay-at-home mothers.
All the gains women achieve at the beginning of their careers evaporate as they get older. That’s why women in America on average earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. Put it another way, female employees have to work an extra 60 days a year to make the same amount as men do.
Perhaps what we really need is for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to funnel a few billion dollars into researching how men can have babies. Hollywood has already provided a script. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the 1994 movie Junior , plays a scientist who impregnates himself using a female fertility drug. Yes, I’ve now gone from the absurd to the bizarre by suggesting that public policy about gender equity pick up where the Terminator left off.
But think of how our world would be different. When couples wanted to conceive, they would turn to each other and say: “Honey, should you or I carry the baby this time?” Now that’s what I call choice.
If men started to have babies, the phrase “working fathers” would become part of our lexicon, and stay-at-home dads would be the norm, not the outliers they are today. GQ would have to publish articles about how “men can have it all,” and Martha Stewart would have to start catering to a male audience. After Sheryl Sandberg wrote a book telling women they need to Lean In, Mark Zuckerberg would need to write a sequel telling men how to Lean Out.
The world I just portrayed can be our reality — even without the miracle of men giving birth. This is how: We need a society that makes men feel as comfortable at home as they do at the office.
Without men in the equation on the home front — doing the laundry, cooking the meals, taking care of the children — women can’t go as far as they want in their careers. That’s because even with the benefit of nannies, baby sitters, and day care, you get to a point where there’s no one else to delegate family responsibility to. Ultimately, that responsibility lands with mom, and she’s the one who ends up leaning in at home.
Think about the recent, much-lauded announcement from Vodafone: Women who work at the mobile phone firm are entitled to at least four months of paid maternity leave, and when they return, they can opt for a reduced work schedule at full pay for six months.
How progressive, right? Well, not exactly.
For sure, paid leave and flexible schedules are generous perks that not a lot of companies offer. But by focusing on mothers, Vodafone continued to put the burden of child care on women. Here’s what would have been better: Vodafone extending the same deal to new fathers and calling it parental leave.
Now I’ve never been to Iceland, Sweden, or any of the Nordic countries, but I think they’ve been hiding something: pregnant men.
These countries have some of the most generous parental leave policies in the world. The result: Nearly all of the fathers in Iceland take paternity leave. On average, they spend three months at home. In the United States, men on average take two weeks off after the birth of a child.
When men are treated the same as expectant mothers, the gender gap narrows. The disparities — based on health, education, economy, and politics — are the smallest in Iceland and the rest of the Nordic countries, according to the World Economic Forum. While these countries round out the top five in closing the gender gap, the United States ranks 20th, just ahead of Ecuador.
Now researchers at Boston College have been stalking new dads around the world. My favorite insight is about the pattern set when mom stays at home with the newborn. She takes the lead as primary caregiver, while the father becomes the supporting actor. As time goes on, it grows harder to switch those roles. Dad’s outside career flourishes while mom’s diminishes.
The ultimate message here? We shouldn’t let up on helping working moms, but we need to do more to make men working dads. When we’re expecting, we need to change what’s expected of men.
US working parents who take significant time off from careers:
39% — Mothers
24% — Fathers
Parents who quit their jobs:
27% — Mothers
10% — Fathers
Source: Pew Research Center
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Shirley Leung is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com or on Twitter @leung. This essay was first presented at TEDxAmherst on April 25.