Rigid Gender Roles Hurt Men

Even if I feel strongly about an issue, I try to read and understand other perspectives. I think it is important to be able to see an issue from multiple sides because it helps me to empathize with those who think differently than I do. 

I am an unapologetic feminist. My extremity varies as I am constantly challenging my beliefs on how feminism fits in with Christianity, with logic, and with my world view. As I have studied the Bible, the more I am convinced that Jesus is a feminist and Paul was a leader in early Christian feminism. 

In studying the other side, the one that throws around terms like "Biblical gender roles," "complementarianism," and the like, I find that their views on gender roles do not just harm women; they also harm men. 

For example, my husband is a tremendously loving and involved father to our son. I am so blessed that my son has a great role model in his father. There are times when it is incredibly inconvenient that many men's restrooms do not have changing tables. Sometimes, he is with the kid at a restaurant without me; sometimes, it's just his turn to change diapers. When that happens, he has to go out to the car, or give me the kid to change because, of course, the women's restroom will have a changing table. 

While we are a happily married couple who can work through issues like lack of changing tables, what about single-fathers? Do they not count as parents?

Recently, our kid had to be picked up from daycare because he was running a fever. It's much more convenient for my husband to get our son because he works 5 minutes from the daycare while I work in another town. Also, I'm a teacher, so leaving work means making emergency sub plans and hoping the students do something productive. My husband told his bosses that the kid is sick, and if I couldn't get a sub, he would need to pick him up. His bosses made insinuations that caring for a sick kid was the wife's job. I couldn't make it in time to get the kid and make it to the doctor (it was a really high fever), so he picked the kid up. He got hell at work for leaving a few hours early. A female at the business stated she did not have any issues leaving work for sick kids. Why is it different for a male? Why is caring and comforting a sick child a woman's job?

By enforcing, consciously or subconsciously, strict gender roles, families are left struggling to fit an impossible mold. Men are pressured to be sole breadwinners in an economy which demands dual-incomes. Fathers are pressured to be fathers at an arms length because "women's work". Instead of focusing on people's strengths and following common sense, females and males are restricted into someone else's (unbiblical) ideas of what females and males should be.

Keeping Abreast of the Situation

Lately, my Facebook page has been flooded with opinions on public breastfeeding with people (usually those who haven't or won't breastfeed) weighing in on every side of the issue. My son is two years old, and I pretty much breastfed him anywhere/everywhere: stores, parks, movie theaters, etc. I rarely used a cover because 1) he was, and still is, the squirmiest wiggle worm; 2) a blanket over your shoulder draws more attention; 3) I didn't like trying to balance a blanket or making sure I always had one with me. I also rarely excused myself from situations to feed him elsewhere because 1) I refuse to nurse in a bathroom stall; 2) Texas summers are unbearable and I don't want to run the A/C while being banished to a car; 3) I don't want to miss out on anything.

Despite being confident about my choices regarding how/when I fed my kid, the comments and implications from the other side do hurt.

When I was fourteen, my breasts were severely burned with battery acid. The scars and trauma from the accident caused extreme anxiety attacks. Sometimes just leaving the house was (and sometimes still is) a struggle. I felt (feel) like my body betrayed (betrays) me because of the scar tissue and the motor skill problems from a TBI. When other people, usually generally good people, talk about public breastfeeding in a manner meant to shame women for their breasts, those old feelings of crippling anxiety arise.

For me, just being physically able to breastfeed is a miracle. The skin grafts, amazingly, do not cover any milk ducts. This vessel of mine which had been shattered and super-glued back together provided nourishment for my child. I genuinely feel sorry for people who would rather be rude to me or compare me to a slut or call me an exhibitionist for not shamefully hiding myself than to celebrate with me this miracle.

It was only a few years ago that I embraced this imperfect body. When I fed my son in public, it wasn't about you. It was about my son. It was about me accepting my body and claiming my victory over anxiety. I refuse to return to the years where I hid in fear and shame. I refuse to be revictimized by you.