This paper examines the historical and cultural factors that have elevated motherhood while marginalizing fatherhood and male caregiving. Beginning with prehistoric traditions of the sacred feminine and continuing through the gendered division of labor in education and healthcare, the paper traces why nurturing roles became associated almost exclusively with women. It argues that societal pressures, wage structures, wartime demographics, and cultural suspicion have discouraged men from entering caregiving professions, to the detriment of children who benefit from stable male role models. The paper concludes that fatherhood should be recognized as an equal and essential complement to motherhood in twenty-first-century culture.
The family is a basic part of human existence; it provides the principal institution of socialization and cultural training. Typically, it is a unit bound together by emotional ties, relationships, or in some cases tradition. In the West, the traditional family of one female mother, one male father, and children — often called the nuclear family — is being challenged by shifts in cultural acceptance, tradition, openness about sexuality, and even the evolution of the core nature of society itself. However, one striking feature of family discourse stands out: over time, the concept of the nurturing mother and motherhood has received far more attention in the arts, popular culture, and even in scholarly research than fatherhood has. This imbalance has, in fact, contributed to a number of professions becoming traditionally oriented toward women — teaching young children, most of the caregiving professions, and even nursing.
At least one educator noted that this represents a clear tragedy for millions of children who can benefit from simply having a male perspective in the classroom. "As a result many children who have no man at home, find no man at preschool and no man at primary school, and never meet a stable, reliable male figure in all their preteen years. Girls never experience nurturing from a trusted older male. Boys, cared for only by women, learn that nurturing is no part of the male job description. And in the absence of reliable men, too many of these boys learn their male role from violent television and music videos, and on the street" (Ballantyne, 2008).
Historically, many reasons exist for this bias toward women as caregivers and the primacy of the mother role. In prehistory, the earth-as-mother concept translated into the sacred feminine — Mother Nature, worship of the feminine, fertility goddesses, and related traditions. This certainly makes sense in context: women give birth, and in a traditional hunter-gatherer culture, men were typically out hunting for protein while women foraged and cared for children. That this tradition of the sacred mother subsequently moved into Christianity (Eve, Mary, and others), Hinduism, and many other belief systems is testament to the enduring power of motherhood as a cultural ideal.
You’re 50% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.