Wednesday, August 05, 2020

Annabel Crabb - "Men at Work: Australia's Parenthood Trap" (Quarterly Essay 75)

Been meaning to read this for a while and hadn't realised it was already on our bookshelf via R!

Annabel Crabb is always good and this is lucid on the way that social and institutional expectations about men's roles shape attitudes, laws (notably availability of paid parental leave), behaviour and ultimately happiness (the last is more sketched than argued, but difficult to disagree with) in relation to parenting. 

By centring men and the costs to them of these patriarchal structures, Crabb brings a less commonly explored perspective to the issue, perhaps with the potential to persuade some who mightn't otherwise be? Hard to say how many of those are reading quarterly essays or adjacent enough to be caught in any resultant attitudinal headwinds. I suppose some might say that this issue shouldn't be made about men - but both as a recognition that feminist concerns are inevitably engaged with effects on all members of society (not just women) given that patriarchy is produced society-wide, and as a tactical intervention, this angle made a lot of sense to me.

As an aside, the examples of paid parental scheme were one case where examples from other countries were particularly compelling in throwing Australia's approach into contrast. I was also struck by Jenny Macklin's take on the political acceptability of publicly-funded parental leave at minimum wage vs Tony Abbott's 'gold plated' model at full pay.