Some post-feminist era

Is this a "post-feminist" era? Are women opting out of employment to recreate male-breadwinner families? Is the younger generation rejecting the values of the Baby Boomers and returning to more traditional mores? No, no, and no, says a new report to be presented May 4 to the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, which will evaluate new trends and research on families over the past decade.

Consider this: 30-40 years ago the rate of men's participation in the work force was 50% higher than the rate of women's participation. Today, the gap is 10%.

And this: Women still do more housework than men, but men have increased their housework by 4 hours, and women have decreased their by 9 hours in the past 15 years.

Or this: The word "post-feminist" was first used in the 1920s to suggest that once the vote had been won, women would not want further change. Today's so-called "post-feminist" generation holds much more egalitarian values about the need for an even division of breadwinning and housework than all older generations, including the baby boomers.

According to CCF scholars Molly Monaghan and Barbara Risman, men and women still have some differences in behavior and outlook, but they continue to move closer together in their behaviors and values, and the younger they are the more true this is. Monaghan (Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania) and Risman ( University of Illinois at Chicago) report on trends in workforce participation, housework, child care, sexuality, and men's and women's attitudes about equality in "A 'Stalled' Revolution or a Still-Unfolding One? The Continuing Convergence of Men's and Women's Roles," a discussion paper prepared for the 10th Anniversary Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families (May 4-5, 2007, at the University of Chicago).

The authors claim that "a disproportionate amount of attention" has been given to a few pieces of data and anecdotal evidence suggesting that women are abandoning the effort to equalize work and men are resisting further change in their own family roles. In fact, they show, men and women have steadily become more similar in their attitudes and behavior over the past 40 years. Despite some temporary fluctuations and continuing differences, the overall trend "is toward greater convergence in men's and women's values and behavior, in and out of the home." ...

The Council on Contemporary Families' 10th Anniversary Conference, "What Works for Today's Families (and What Doesn't)?: A decade of research, practice, and dialogue," will be held Friday, May 4, and Saturday, May 5, 2007, on the campus of the University of Chicago.