13
votes
Parental union dissolution and the gender revolution – how divorce is boosting gender equality in Sweden
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- Title
- How divorce is boosting gender equality in Sweden - new study
- Authors
- Helen Eriksson
- Published
- Jun 28 2024
- Word count
- 783 words
Im not sure I will ever understand why there is a push for 'gender equality' when it comes to nurturing children, especially very young children. The sexes are NOT equal. There is only one sex who can get pregnant. There is only one sex who can give birth after carrying that child for nine months. Fathers will never have that same level of intimacy with a child because the mother has literally carried that life inside her body for 3/4 of a year. After a child is born the very first thing that happens is that child is placed on the mother and it hears and feels its mother's voice outside the womb, the same voice it has heard inside and of course there is an instant recognition and bond. And the child feels it's mom's heartbeat and the touch of her skin. And then soon after, baby feeds from mom's own breast. She sustains the baby's life with her own body.
And then along comes equal rights advocates to say "we're going to make the mother and father equal because they are the same". Its just nonsensical. A father will NEVER match the life giving, nurturing, life sustaining role of a mother. Never.
And its illogical to pretend the sexes are equal especially to a young child. Just because a child spends half his time at each household has nothing to do with mom and dad being "equal". They never have been, never will be - Mother has always been the primary force, the literal source of life in every child's life and Father will be lucky if he can come close to the same importance.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Honestly this seems pretty reductive. Yes, of course, a biological mom has a large head start. But saying "never" is immediately falsified when you consider things like adoption, maternal death, whatever, where the baby is effectively raised by another person.
But even focusing on the two biological parent scenario, I think you're missing a lot here. Like, yes, mom starts with a headstart so... what, just don't try? There's plenty of child raising still to be done. The vast, vast majority of it honestly. Post-birth, dad can easily be an equal partner in this. Plenty of babies are placed on dad's chest right after mom's. There's lots soothing, changing, cleaning, and just general care that can be done by the other parent, even assuming you're 100% breastfeeding, which lots of people don't. Not to even mention all the stuff that comes after infancy.
The real point here is that it's silly and self-defeating to just assume that mom needs to be the primary parent in perpetuity. Sometimes mom is tired. Sometimes she's sick. Sometimes she, like all people, needs a break from caring for other people. Lots of mothers don't feel a mystical bond to their babies. Lots of them struggle deeply with that expectation. Lots of mothers aren't up nurturing a helpless infant immediately after a potentially traumatic birth experience. And there's literally no reason that parenting burden can't be shared equally by the other parent.
Alright I'll bite. This is some reductive nonsense. Giving birth does not magically make someone a good parent. There are plenty of crappy mothers out there; deifying them just because they have a particular set of organs is short sighted and frankly damaging to both sexes. Plenty of people also choose to not or are not able to breast feed. Is a person who's had a mastectomy because of cancer suddenly less capable as a parent?
The push for gender equality is as the article implies - it's difficult for single parents to raise their children. Having a partner can half that workload.
I think there's some sort of mystical element in your comment though? Your descriptions comparing a mother to a necessity for the raising of a child is simply false - there are single fathers and men who give birth. I'm picking up on this bioessentialist current in your comment that I hope I'm just imagining.
@Gowestyoungman is one of Tildes’ few (only?) social conservatives. So it isn’t surprising their views trend in an essentialist direction.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out in the next few decades that skin-to-skin post-natal contact is important for long-term development. There’s a lot of work happening with epigenetics and gut microbiota that would be relevant/related here.