"Women are naturally better parents" - Please help me articulate why this is sexist!

[MrsMangoBiscuit]

Mainly a lurker over here, but I'm starting this thread in the hopes you can help. Someone I work with (a nice someone, by no means a jerk!) came out with "Well I think women just make better parents. It's genetic, that's why women have looked after the children for thousands of years." He doesn't think that means that women shouldn't work. When quizzed, he takes the very reasonable view that each family should do what's best for them. He thinks that men who make natural parents are a tiny lucky minority and not the norm.

He means the "women make better/make natural parents" thing as a compliment. Thing is, it's not. It's sexist, and I'm really stuggling to put into concise words, why it is. Help!

I have tried arguing the point with him, but always seem to get stuck. I won't go into it all here or this post will be an essay, I just didn't want to drip feed.

Women can do the one thing that men can't for the child, breast feed. They are generally the better parent because a lot of them make themselves 'superior' parent and the man an extra child. They then complain when he sees childcare as 'babysitting' but they have brought about the situation, they both start as novices but she is immediately telling him how to hold, bath etc and which clothes to dress in etc etc.
Men are just as capable if they are given the chance and not issued with instructions and treated as incapable. Of course it suits a lot of men to be thought useless!

People are men or women.
People do parenting.
Parenting tasks are many and various.

Which parenting tasks is he saying women are better at? Saying women are better breastfeeders is not sexist, saying that women are better at cutting children's hair is.

I think it's true that on the whole women are the better parent, I.e more responsive to their children's needs - but I think a huge part of this, more than any biological component, is that we are socially constructed to take this nurturing role. It's very hard for a lot of people to see this so they fall back on the essentialist argument that we are just 'different' in essence.

It is more common for men to walk away from children. I'm not sure why. I'm sure a lot of mothers would go cold at the mere thought of hardly seeing their children from one year to the next yet there are thousands of men who are like that. Is it down to the fact that the woman carries the child and thus has a connection from day one whereas the man has to build the connection? Or is it down to society and the expectation that women will care for children while for men it's optional?

I noticed a difference between me and DH from the day I discovered I was pregnant. For me the baby was a real thing and I worried about him constantly, I had horrible fears of miscarriage and problems. DH worried at scans or if I was ever unwell but he could forget about the pregnancy for hours at a time in a way that I hardly ever could. As soon as DS was born that changed and he was a totally hands-on father, but if he hadn't been there, if he was an absent father, I don't think he would have ever really connected with the whole thing. Women don't have the choice to be absent - they are in it whether they like it or not and are hooked in from the day they discover they're pregnant. So men have a slower start so to speak. That's not to say that men and women can't be equally good parents in the end, but I wonder if for a lot of couples the woman is so bonded with the new baby that the man hardly gets a look in and gets relegated to "helper" right from the start.

It's sexist because:
It gives men a let-out "You're so much better at changing nappies, dear."
It fits into a worldview where women are better at nurturing and men are better at maths, engineering, running the world...
It puts an expectation on women that if they don't take to it naturally there's something weird about them.
And if a man does become a SAHD, at worst they're seen as vaguely inadequate and unmasculine.
Oh and a woman in a couple with childcare split 50:50 has to put up with "ooh, aren't you lucky!"

Blaming women for men who are shite parents is even more sexist than the original statement, exotic.

Mrs - to my mind it's sexist because it's essentialist: it says that women have certain qualities because they are women, and that it is natural for them to behave in certain ways that make them better parents - kinder, more patient, more "nurturing" etc.

IME and O the biological differences in being a mother rather than a father are significant - it's not just breastfeeding (which is a lot more important than the "fathers are just boobless mothers" people are prepared to admit).

But I don't think a mother is a better parent than a father, although I do think in the early years they are different roles (and DH and I are about as close to interchangeable parental units as it's possible to be.)

Op are you going to learn the anwers off by heart and recite them?

He meant no offence, so I would not take any.

Sometimes you have to take n the tone and intention as well as the words.

Agree with Cailín about the significance of growing the baby inside you.

I'm always a bit when it is asserted that a man's contribution to creating a baby is 50% of the work.

There's a real sexism in the supposedly egalitarian insistence that parenting is always 50-50, in its refusal to acknowledge what women's bodies actually do.

I'm really interested in how this turns out.

Deep down, I think I believe that women make the better parent. But that is because I live and work in a fairly physical world where men are better suited to doing the work. The men I know are not creative, nurturing types - more like cave man providers!

I don't however think this will except my DH from changing nappies when our baby is born in a few months. It just means I will be the one who probably looks after the emotional needs of the child whils DH pays for our lifestyle.

However, I do get all upset and have numerous conversations about this with DH so I'm quite interested to know if it's due to my nature or nuture iykwim!!

People say sexist, racist and homophobic things all the time without meaning offence.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be challenged.

Some very interesting points, thank you all. I hadn't really thought about men being able to tune out through the pregnancy and the effect on care later. DH was very involved right from the start, and still is. DD is equally his responsibilty, and he's very good at parenting. Mind you, if someone told him he was an inferior parent because he wasn't female, he'd be pissed! We do joke that for construction of DD, supply of materials was 50/50, but the labour was all done my me!

Chandon, I haven't taken offence, he's a really nice guy. I certainly don't think any less of him. We were having a discussion about it, and I was really struggling to put into words why I find it such a sexist opinion. I'm never usually lost for words! But even sat here by myself I was finding it hard to clarify. I don't think I'll be able to memorise all this, hmm, maybe flash cards... Seriously though, unless he brings up the topic again, I doubt I will mention it. I will however, be armed with more ordered thoughts and ideas if I have the same discussion with anyone.

I think much of it is simply due to women doing the majority of childcare - whether this is due to historical or cultural reasons. I remember having an argument with someone about this who pointed out that most children would automatically call for their mothers if they hurt themselves.

DH was made redundant just before DS was born. It meant I went back to work earlier from ML earlier than planned, and DH spent a year being a SAHD.
I certainly don't find DS prefers me to him - I really do think a good part of being the 'main parent' is simply who spends the most time with the child.

I think one of the reasons I think it's a sexist opinion is that it assumes that women have some sort of inherent parenting gene - and that leads to more assumptions like parenting is easier for mothers, which leads to some dads taking on less childcare because they think not knowing what they're doing at the beginning is due to being a dad, whereas we all learn as we go.

"We do joke that for construction of DD, supply of materials was 50/50, but the labour was all done my me!"

But your joke is wrong. You supplied way more than 50% of materials as well as all the labour.

He contributed 50% to the blueprint. The rest was you, until the baby was capable of living on its own. And even then both you and baby are designed so that more of materials and labour comes from you.

Blaming women for men who are shite parents is even more sexist than the original statement, exotic

Well it is BUT you only have to read MN to know that it is true. There are many women who have never left their DP with the baby and gone out. There is the excuse of bfeeding but they could just announce they were off shopping and would be back in 2 hours and go-without issuing instructions to an equal parent.

"you only have to read MN to know that it is true."

:o

I guess that depends on what shade of prejudice glasses you have on.

I'm breastfeeding a newborn ATM. I could no more fuck off for 2 hours than I could do the splits.

DH is not the "equal parent" of our 2 week old daughter. I'm not even completely finished her construction. I'm way more important to her now than he is, and he's the last person who'd be making claims about his supposed parenting equality.

Apart from anything else, he's too busy parenting our older two.

And we do all sorts of breastfeeding no-nos - DH is already doing one feed of EBM a day. IME it does help him to bond with them. But lots of women can't/won't choose to do this (and the advice is that they shouldn't) and that's not because they are usurping the man's rightful place at the centre if the universe. It's because they are responding to their own baby as a mother.

But the statement "Women are naturally better parents" isn't really about bearing children and breastfeeding little babies. I think it implies women naturally have more patience with screaming toddlers / sleep deprivation / helping with homework. So obviously they should deal with all that and if the father does a bit, he is 'helping'.

There you are-as I said-you are saying that you are the 'naturally better parent' to a baby. You can't have it both ways.

It means that the mother has bonded better with the baby because she is there all the time-she has never let DP have sole charge and therefore it then carries on. At what point does she leave him to be equal parent. Does she pop off for a whole weekend when the DC is 3 years -or is she still making out she can't? If she does go for the weekend can she leave the house without issuing instructions?

AThingInYourLife, I will amend it to 50% of the blueprint. :)

I've thought of another reason why it's sexist. If women are natural, or better parents, then it must be easier for them than for the man. The effort they put into childcare is down played.

of course a man can be as good a perent as a woman, that go's without saying, the relationship i have with my boys is equaly as close as that my wife has with them and worlds apart from the relationship i had with my mother and father, which was more traditional, but yeah, times change.

the problem is with equal child care come some benifits, in deciding whats best for them and so on, but my OH can get territorial about the children, allthough she enjoys the equal workloads we have, she still has the feeling that the kids should be 'her department' and she should have the final say in discisionmaking.

little things like chosing their clothes before i dress them , like i'm not capable of doing that myself, leaving me instructions on what they should eat before she go's to work on the weekday i look after them.

back to the OP before i make this all about me
i think looking after children is hard, really hard, the buggers slowly wear you down over time, it takes real commitment and patience. the status quo where society deems women as the better carers of children suits most men just fine.
why would you argue for what might make you a busy and frustrated person.
so alot of men have an interest in not upseting the applecart.

i know guys who have called my looking after the kids as 'babysitting' i really have to point out that you cant babysit your own child, another freind of mine (who gets visably stressed just at the very memory of trying to feed his kids) who openly says that when his wife went out a couple of times he phoned her to say " you better get back here i dont know what to do, they just keep crying" . he also argues that 'women have breasts' therfore, so the argument go's, nature clearly ment women to be better at this sort of work. this man isnt a rightwing old fashioned racist attall, infact he's dissapointed when anyone says anything remotly racist, it's just his opinions on perenting are formed by how difficult he found fatherhood.

I have looked up the dictionary definition of "sexist".
It appears there are 2 points to it,and the man saying what he said,is 1.not being sexist,because he is not discriminating,but 2.yes is being sexist as in "promoting the stereotype of gender".I would argue though that the stereotype is correct.

Is it sexist for someone to say "women have larger breasts",well it appears that yes,that can be said to be sexist.
Or that "women have a vagina",yes that is sexist.

I wonder if he acknowledges that it was most likely just as difficult for his wife before she got practised at it.

Sorry, that was in response to peoplesrepublicofmeow :)

That was exactly what I meant peoplesrepublicofmeow. It is the little things e.g. how many women would let their DP dress them in a strange combination of clothes and let them go out without making him change them? How many would say when phoned up about crying 'well, I'm sure that you will manage'?
How many are actually worried that the baby will end up a 'daddy's girl'?

A lot of women take on the role and would feel undermined if the man was just as good a parent or better. There are women who still wouldn't pop out for 2 hours when they are bottle feeding.

Unless either have much experience of babies they are complete novices. DH and I hadn't a clue about babies before we had one so we learned together-I can't see why I should be the one to show him anything-I didn't naturally know because I am a woman!