Change Rituals and Behavior

Ute Frevert is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and a professor of history at the Free University of Berlin.

The current state of gender inequalities in Western societies has an interesting story to tell about the longevity of mentalities. Mentalities generally change much more slowly than legal codifications and institutional policies.

Through our behavior as parents, employers and leaders, we can set a different example and serve as role models for younger generations.

People hold on to belief systems, rituals and modes of behavior far longer than real-life circumstances urge and demand them to. This has to do with how these belief systems are passed on from one generation to the next, through mimetic procedures, learning devices and artifacts whose meaning and interpretation are hard to control. Children’s literature, for example, still works with images of family and gender roles that attract feminist criticism. The further you look back in time and include books that you grew up with and want to share with your children, the more difficult it is to reconcile their implicit and explicit messages with our ideas of gender equality.

So there are strong factors out there that lead present-day women to feel responsible for the social and emotional set-up of the family. This comes in handy for men, who gladly contribute material resources but cut down on time and emotional work that they prefer to invest into their professional careers.

What can be done to change this mentality, which seems to be the main force driving women to drop out of the employment sector or reduce their commitment to a degree that hinders them to from being recruited in high-profile positions? We cannot, of course, “sanitize” the artifacts and media transporting traditional gender roles. But we can make sure, through our own behavior as parents, employers and leaders to set a different example and serve as role models for the younger generation. This is relevant for women as much as men. I personally know many more women than men who combine active parenthood with professional ambitions. Men’s education is thus badly needed. If they resist change, our striving is bound to fail.


http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/05/how-can-we-get-men-to-do-more-at-home/how-to-change-the-status-quo-of-gender-roles