Friedan calls for more research on fathers and parenting

Almost 40 years after the release of her controversial bestseller, "The Feminine Mystique," feminist author Betty Friedan thinks women's rise in the workplace has been good for their mental health, and hasn't harmed their children as some had feared.

But, social scientists have focused too much on the changing role of mothers, and not enough on the equally important role of fathers, Friedan said at a talk for APA's celebration of Women's History Month in March.

"Instead of all this defensive research about what it does to children if women work outside the home, there needs to be more research on what it does for kids to have an active, parenting father," said Friedan, a distinguished visiting professor at Cornell University and director of the program on "New Paradigm: Women, Men, Work, Family and Public Policy."

"It's all very well that women are now getting the same number of professional degrees as men, but until men are considered equally responsible for the parenting, there's not equality," she said. "And we're still very mother-centered in our approach to parenting. I don't know if our educators and psychologists are taking that one on."

Friedan cited a few positive signs that men do more parenting--babies in men's backpacks, for example, and changing tables in men's bathrooms--but said the media still push images of "machismo."

"Our images need to change so that a man who doesn't assume [significant] responsibility as a parent is seen as a wimp," Friedan said. "The idea should be, 'Real men diaper their babies.'"

While impressed with women's headway in the workplace, Friedan called for more attention to family leave and more national investment in high-quality, stimulating day care for children. But for psychologists and other social science researchers, the most important next step is shifting the research focus from mothers to fathers, she said.

"Women have had too much power in the home and it's not been good for the family," said Friedan. "It's really better for the family that women get some power in society, and then they don't need to have all that power in the home. It's better for children, and better for husbands and fathers to share the power in the parenting."

--B. Murray

Friedan's latest book, co-authored with Brigid O'Farrell, is "Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family" (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997). She was one of several speakers including Julianne Malveaux, the economist and syndicated columnist, who spoke at APA headquarters during Women's History Month.



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