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27 - Conclusion: The Paths to Equality

from What We Have Learned

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2020

By
Francine M. Deutsch ,
Ruth A. Gaunt  and
Madison E. Richards
Edited by
Francine M. Deutsch  and
Ruth A. Gaunt
Francine M. Deutsch
Affiliation:
Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts
Ruth A. Gaunt
Affiliation:
University of Lincoln
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Summary

The concluding chapter describes the equal sharers as nonconformists, resisters of gendered norms, and recounts the social criticism that their lifestyle can evoke. The chapter identifies factors across diverse cultures that enable this resistance. They include couples’ conscious adoption of egalitarian principles and insistence that they be put into practice, which often entails women’s sense of entitlement to equality, and their ongoing communication with their partners. In addition, anti-essentialist beliefs, familism, and anti-materialism underwrite their equality. Lessons from their families of origin, whose lives they either imitate or reject also encourage their resistance to gendered norms. Finally, the chapter enumerates the rewards equal sharing provides for men, women, marriage/partnership, and children.

Keywords

feminismnonconformityresistance to social normsanti-materialismanti-essentialismfamilismsocializationfamilies of origindomestic laborgender equalitygender ideology
Type
Chapter
Information
Creating Equality at Home
How 25 Couples around the World Share Housework and Childcare
 , pp. 366 - 394
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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