Gratitude and relative-deprivation theory.
Image by Katerina Kerdi on Unsplash
Several years ago, when I began digging into the work and research around the confluence of motherhood and work, almost every mother that I interviewed made sure to share that despite the hardships that she may face in her day-to-day life that she was “grateful” or “lucky” that she had a partner who supported her (1). Mothers, whether they work for pay or not, over and over give concession to their partners for one thing or another. And, the addition of ‘I don’t mind because’ [fill in the blank] he travels so much for work, he makes more money than I do, he is so busy, he needs time to decompress, I am better at these things than he is, etc… were normal responses. Gratitude and grace is so much in the foundation of our humanity (and most especially as a female gendered norm in our society) that if/when we don’t feel gratitude we feel we are somehow being inhuman. And yes of course, being grateful to a supportive partner can be tantamount to a strong relationship foundation but there is also much more that underlies this.
There is also a clear lack of consensus among couples as to whose time is more valuable and a lack of deep understanding around what is acceptable, good enough, or extraordinary when it comes to the division of labor within the home (In the Fair Play Method (2), this is referred to as the Minimum Standard of Care). In fact, the disparity of thought amongst heterosexual couples can be jaw-dropping and over and over we consciously and unconsciously treat mens time as more valuable than women’s time and unpaid work as less valuable than paid work. I do not intend for this to come across as blameful. But I always do intend to share the facts and the facts have been spelled out over and over in one research study after another that there is a disparity in unpaid work among men and women and a disparity in belief around whose time is more valuable. What we have come to know is that things need to change at home if we hope to solve for gender equality. The research shows over and over again that women’s time is treated as infinite, while men’s time is finite (2).
Yet, despite this and despite the universal acknowledgment amongst mothers that indeed being a mother is hard work (albeit important and meaningful and valuable) and that unpaid work and caregiving is often at the root of the stalling of women’s advancement in paid work among other things (3) —why is it then that more women have not banded together in adamant protest over the imbalance of unpaid work within the home and the value of their time?
The answer in part has to do with relative-deprivation theory.
In Sociology, the relative-deprivation theory states that “only when one feels more deprived than other members of her reference group will she feel entitled to adamant protest”. For mothers raising children with a modern involved father, there is often pressure (sometimes self-imposed) to feel appreciation or gratitude. After all, men are doing more work at home than the 1950’s and they continue to more often than not bring the bigger paychecks (#genderpaygap) and work longer hours (#workdevotion model). Since there is always a story that is circling of someone else who is perhaps lazier, or less attentive, women who “appreciate their lives and their relationships feel reluctant to acknowledge their displeasure”.
So, as long as our partners are doing seemingly more than their peer group or what our society seems to expect, then we’re happy. After all, a 65/35 division of child and home labor is far better than the 80/20 that existed in 1970s and ’80s. (4) But should we measure our current relationships to the generation that came before?
If women and mothers are to achieve parity with men, a deep look into the gendered division of labor at home is critical. Gender equality at work begins with gender equality at home, plain and simple.
So, I leave you with a quote from an Atlantic article written in 2019:
“To offer thanks for whatever contributions men happen to make reinforces the implicit idea that parenting is women’s work, that 65/35 is a very fine place to stop. For too long, women have paid for this imbalance with their well-being—financially, emotionally, existentially. Only once gratitude is relinquished for righteous anger will gender rules in this realm be rewritten. Then we can land somewhere different: not grateful, only glad.” (4)
Think on this. Agree or disagree. Feel what you need to feel, but know that if deep societal change is going to happen, then deep thinking surrounding how things have always been done need equal scrutiny. But I also leave you with this. Unpaid work doesn’t have to be 50-50, it can be 80/20 or 65/35 or whatever two partners together deem reasonable. BUT, the conscious modeling and the conscious conversations and the understanding of the impact that imbalance can have on relationships, time, and paid work is a critical step towards moving forward.
Sources & Notes:
(1) Read more about the Economy of Gratitude in The Second Shift by Arlie Hochschild
(2) Understand systems for change around unequal labor at home and the value of time in Fair Play, by Eve Rodsky
(3) In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development called the uneven distribution of unpaid labor between men and women in the home one of the most important gender-equality issues of our time”.