Many years ago, when real estate was affordable, I bought a starter home in a funky Toronto neighbourhood. All the young moms had been steeped in feminism, but none had the least interest in climbing the corporate ladder. Few were interested in standard full-time jobs. One was a singer. One was an alternative therapist of some sort. Penny, the woman next door, had a traditional marriage, with four kids, a dog and lots of voluntary work. I didn't want her life, but she didn't want mine either. She didn't seem the least oppressed.
For women, the need to work has changed dramatically – try buying a house in Toronto these days – but their personal preferences haven't changed as much as you might think. Just over a quarter of Canadian working women hold part-time jobs, primarily, they say, because they choose to. They'd rather have more time for the kids, avoid the crappy commutes and let their husbands work the overtime. Their model isn't Sheryl Sandberg. It's Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.
Yet, the preferences of actual women do not figure in the thinking of government policy makers, or of feminists. What they want women to do is work more like men.
Why? Because, number one, it would be good for the economy. More women out working more hours and earning more money and paying more taxes would boost the GDP. The government's economic advisers are all for it. They point out that if only women with kids under 16 spent more time at work and less time with their kids, we'd all be better off. (No one has asked the kids what they think.)
Besides, only if women work like men can they achieve true gender equity – defined as equal outcomes for all. Some feminists are even objecting to the government's decision to extend parental leave to 18 months. Why? Because women's careers could suffer. "For mothers tempted by the promise of some extra time off at home with their newborn, it's something of a poisoned chalice," groused Ivona Hideg, a business professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, in The Globe. "It may have been intended as 'woman-friendly,' but this policy is a bad deal for gender equality."
I am not sure how we arrived at the point where the chance to stay at home with your one-year-old is a poisoned chalice. Too much feminist analysis comes from women who mistakenly believe that all women want what they want.
The truth is that the labour-force participation rate for Canadian women is already high. It reached 82 per cent in 2014, compared with 91 per cent for men. That's a difference of just 9 points. (In the United States, the participation rate for women is just 74 per cent.)
Is it possible that the gender revolution has reached its limits? New research is suggestive. It shows that U.S. millennials – especially younger millennials – are exhibiting far less enthusiasm for gender equality. Today, a surprising number of young-adult men want stay-at-home wives. In the 2010s, for example, 28 per cent of American adults between the ages of 18 and 25 agree it's better if the woman takes care of home and family – up from 22 per cent in the 1990s.
As gender historian Stephanie Coontz wrote in The New York Times: "Overall, Americans aged 18 to 34 are less comfortable than their elders with the idea of women holding roles historically held by men. And millennial men are significantly more likely than Gen X or baby boomer men to say that society has already made all the changes needed to create equality in the workplace."
What's going on? One answer may be demographics. Family experts W. Bradford Wilcox and Samuel Sturgeon, writing in The Washington Post, point out that minorities, especially Hispanics, make up a growing share of U.S. millennials. And minority men tend to hold more traditional attitudes about gender roles. (I'd love to know if this holds true for immigrant minorities in Canada.) The other reason is that younger women have rejected gender-equality feminism in favour of choice feminism. Choice feminism allows them "to invest heavily in their children, juggle work and family responsibilities, and maintain a sense of feminist self-respect." In other words, they believe in gender equality in the workplace, along with some form of gender specialization in the private sphere.
This confirms my impression. Some of the most ardent young feminists I know these days are stay-at-home moms. They are, to say the least, intensive parents. Nobody made them do it. They chose to. And if you tell them they've betrayed the sisterhood, they'll bite your head off.