Equal Partners
Improving Gender Equality at Home
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2.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"An inspiring and inclusive guide for rethinking and reworking household gender roles."—Booklist (starred review)
"This book is a beautiful, engaging way to look at the modern family and Mangino works to dismantle gendered assumptions and replace them with structured decision making examples and case studies. A must read."—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play
From gender expert and professional facilitator Kate Mangino comes Equal Partners, an informed guide about how we can all collectively work to undo harmful gender norms and create greater household equity.
As American society shut down due to Covid, millions of women had to leave their jobs to take on full-time childcare. As the country opens back up, women continue to struggle to balance the demands of work and home life. Kate Mangino, a professional facilitator for twenty years, has written a comprehensive, practical guide for readers and their partners about gender norms and household balance. Yes, part of our gender problem is structural, and that requires policy change. But much of our gender problem is social, and that requires us to change.
Quickly moving from diagnosis to solution, Equal Partners focuses on what we can do, everyday people living busy lives, to rewrite gender norms to support a balanced homelife so both partners have equal time for work, family, and self. Mangino adopts an interactive model, posing questions, and asking readers to assess their situations through guided lists and talking points. Equal Partners is broad in its definition of gender and gender roles. This is a book for all: straight, gay, trans, and non-binary, parents and grandparents, and friends, with the goal to help foster gender equality in readers' homes, with their partners, family and wider community.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gender consultant Mangino debuts with a thoughtful treatise on how to achieve parity in the division of household labor. Troubled by research findings that women in different-sex relationships contribute more to physical and emotional work around the home than their partners, Mangino provides "ideas, stories, interviews, and suggestions about what you can do to address household gender inequality with your partner." She studies 40 men who match their partners' contributions at home, noting that all are strong communicators, prioritize family time, and aren't afraid of vulnerability. Mangino proffers advice on how to build an equal partnership while dating, suggesting, for example, that "‘the gender talk'... should be an ongoing dialogue" and that those in the "Female Role" (which, she notes, can be occupied by someone of any gender) should make sure their partner supports their career. Mangino's sharp insights into contemporary gender dynamics persuasively argue that there remains much to be done to achieve equality between partners (she reports, for instance, on research that found "working mothers today spend as many hours taking care of their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s"). The result is a vital manual for understanding how gender norms shape domestic life and how readers can change the script.
