Sunday, January 25, 2004

A couple mentions to mention, starting with this brief but flattering piece about a Detroit-area dad. Despite the brevity (it's a story based on a TV report), the guy featured, Kevin O'Shea, manages to make two thoughtful points: 1) stupid comments about "what do you do all day" tend to come from men -- suggesting that a lot of men have never thought hard about the at-home role and 2) he compliments at-home mothers and laments that moms frequent get starved of the fawning attention paid to at-home dad.

The second piece worth reading is this San Francisco Chronicle review of a production of Ibsen's wildly-progressive-for-the-19th-century "A Doll House."

Here's the money paragraph: "To expand the argument further, shouldn't both sexes be able to decide for themselves what constitutes happiness and freedom? Society-enforced gender roles don't only put women in boxes; men are even more locked in than women. I mean, when was the last time you heard a man question whether he'd do something with his master's degree in economics or stay at home and clean house? I'm astonished that there are a handful of stay-at-home dads as it is, so tough it must be for them to buck those norms."

It's nice to see the limits on men's choices brought to the forefront. Society won't ever get over the final hurdles to gender equality until we deal with that reality.

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