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April 29, 2009, 11:44 AM ET
Recession May Bring Greater Empathy Between the Sexes
We know single mothers have it bad. They are poorer than married mothers and their work lives are constrained by child care. Lots of complaints and worries from their end, and society’s. In the face of this woe, it’s curious that most divorce filers women. One reason mothers leave marriages or don’t marry at all may be that as economist Heidi Hartmann observed 20 years ago, and as better data in a great paper by sociologist Emily Passias at Ohio State shows, single mothers may have more time to themselves than married women. There is a long line of academic research — think Arlie Hochschild — and vicious popular culture depicting men as big babies. “I have four children: the little one, Steve; Mary; Tom; and my husband Bob.” Ha Ha Ha.
The recession has hit men hard, over 80 percent of the 5 million newly unemployed are men. Since they are losing middle-class jobs in manufacturing, construction, etc., they may never get back to where they were. They will have some leisure time too.
Women are increasingly the breadwinners. As women do what men do, take on full responsibility for the material support for their family, maybe it’s the men who will complain about his wife’s insistence on being appreciate and “indulged.”
David Denby notes that for over a decade Hollywood has produced that pull “jokes and romance out of the struggle between male infantilism and female ambition.” But as men and women do more of each other’s traditional jobs, mabye empathy will be the new story line.
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