WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 [MUSIC FADES IN] 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.000 This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu. Our "Think Again" series continues. Today, how to have a more equal partnership. 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:03.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:04.000 [INTRIGUING MUSIC] 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:05.000 A few years ago, Kate Mangino had a ton on her plate. She was teaching multiple undergraduate classes while finishing her PhD. She had two young kids, two and five years old. Her husband was working a nine to five job, so Kate was taking on a lot of the parenting and household responsibilities. 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.000 I was the parent that got the phone call from daycare when someone was sick and had to come home early. And I was overwhelmed and struggling. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Then, one day, Kate's PhD advisor told her, her deadline was getting moved up. Instead of two months to hand in her dissertation, she now had one month. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:08.000 And I went home that night and I sobbed. I mean, I just, I couldn't get myself together. I cried and cried and cried. The kids were in bed. I remember sitting on my kitchen floor, which was filthy. That was part of the problem because I thought, and on top of everything else, I have to clean my kitchen floor. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Her husband tried to comfort her. He kept saying, "Tell me what I can do to help you." 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.000 And I got angry, and I said, "Don't you understand? Telling you what to do to help is work." That adds more to my plate. I don't wanna tell you what to do. I just want you to step up and do it. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.000 What Kate said there, maybe you've said that before to your partner. Or had it said to you. Researchers have found that in different-sex relationships today, 65 percent of the physical housework is done by women and 35 percent is done by men. 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.000 Now, Kate knew this statistic. This is what she studies. She's a gender expert. But this moment that she had on her kitchen floor, it was a turning point for her, and it inspired her to dive into the research and write a book called, "Equal Partners$% Improving Gender Equality at Home." 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:13.000 My conversation with Kate is part our series "Think Again," about how to reimagine work, home, relationships and more. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:14.000 Kate says women's empowerment, gender equality, whatever you want to call it, it has come a long way, but when you really think about the impact of gender norms on our daily lives, we still have so much further to go. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:15.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:16.000 You know, I think that there's this notion that because things are so much better now than they were in say 1950 or 1960, there's this myth that this is as good as it gets. And so, I think a lot of people fall into a bit of a trap, thinking, "Well, here I am. We've achieved gender equality in North America. We can move on," and don't stop to think about how gendered our behavior still really is. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you can give a few examples so that people know what you're talking about when you say that there's certain things that are considered intrinsic or natural, when in fact, they are actually socialized to be typical female-role behavior versus male-role. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:18.000 I think one of the biggest myths is that women are somehow more natural caregivers than men, that women have this biological ability to be a caregiver, that men don't have that chip. [CHUCKLES] They're just not born with that. And we know that's false. That's a learned behavior. And girls are given dolls from the time that they're infants and they're encouraged to take care of siblings and they babysit on the weekends, and they participate in caregiving roles their entire upbringing. Boys aren't given dolls, boys don't as often babysit, boys are tasked with mowing the lawn as opposed to watching siblings. So, we just grow up into these gendered patterns. And as you said, it becomes a learned social pattern. But because it's so prominent, I think it easily gets confused with biology. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.000 You know, one of the messages in this book, maybe one of the most important messages to reach everyone, is how household gender inequality is harmful for everybody. It doesn't just harm women. So, can you talk about some of the ways that men are negatively impacted by inequality in a household or inequality in a partnership? 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Absolutely. And I'm glad you raised that because I really … you could come at this idea from a justice perspective and say that we need gender equality because it's the right thing for women and girls. And I think that's a very legitimate argument. I come at it from a slightly different place, as you said, that is about equity. That gender equality is better for all of us. I think that the harms for women can be a little bit more evident. We can see them daily. Harms for men, sometimes it takes a longer time to pinpoint what those are. But we see when we push men into the income generation role only and put them in the box - this is what you do, and you don't need to do anything else - over time, you see that men don't have those close emotional bonds with spouse and kids and family members that they might if they were involved in the daily caregiving. They don't have anywhere to turn when they're feeling sadness or frustration or anger, and that can build up. So, we see a lot of health problems. It can manifest itself into physical health problems and depression for men, as well as substance abuse in an extreme case. And on the flip side, the men that I interviewed for my book, when I asked them, how do you benefit from your equal partnership? They were very quick to give me so many examples. They don't have tension in their house. They don't feel like their wife is nagging them. They're not bickering. They have a really close and strong relationship with their spouse. They have a great sex life. They have great relationships with their kids. They can be open with other family members and friends. Another thing that came up a lot is they feel able to be their own authentic selves in their household. They're not pretending to be masculine. They're not putting on an air of what a man should be. They can be scared. They can be sad. They can show emotions to their family. And that's very freeing for a lot of men who feel like they have to perform masculinity in other places of their life. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:21.000 You know, Kate, as we're talking, I'm just thinking about the people in our lives and our families, but also greater lives, who do subscribe to these very traditional gender norms and who might be bristling at hearing a conversation like this that suggests that something is not working in their partnership. What do you say to people like that? 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:22.000 There was a friend of mine who I asked to be an early reader, and she got about halfway through the book and didn't want to finish it because she felt like I was somehow attacking her own relationship. And I explained, I said, "Listen, I'm not advocating for anyone to live a certain way." If people have traditional gender norms and it's working for you and you're happy, I'm the last person that's going to suggest that you change your behavior if it works for you. Life is hard enough. Parenting is hard. Being in a relationship is hard. Whatever's working, good on you. [CHUCKLES] That's fantastic. So, I said, "Okay, I'd really appreciate it if you'd finish the book with the lens of: This isn't about me and my relationship, because I'm perfectly happy, but can this give me the vocabulary and the perspective and the stories and the data so that as my kids grow up, if they choose to do something different than what I have, can I support them in that way?" And she did, and it went great. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.000 Let's talk a little bit about how this book is laid out. And what I like about it is there's a lot of practical takeaways in it, but it's not an instruction manual. [CHUCKLES] It's not telling people, you know, here are the steps one through 10 that you need to follow. But maybe it's good for us to establish what do you mean when you talk about equal partners in partnerships and households and in marriage? What is an equal partnership by your standards? 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.000 I'll start out what it's not. It's not following each other around with a clipboard ticking off who's doing what and making sure that you do the same amount every day. I think all … 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Which sounds insufferable. Yeah. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:26.000 I think all of us in a relationship would know that that is completely unrealistic. Equal partnership in my mind means that two people … And I use "partnership" broadly. It doesn't matter what gender identity is. I interviewed different-sex and same-sex and queer couples in my research. But two people come together and they share in the physical and cognitive labor of the home. So, what we often see is a gender divide, the traditional patterns that people fall into if they don't really intentionally think through. Female-coded tasks tend to be indoor and routine, and male-coded tasks tend to be outdoor and intermittent, which means that there's just more to do in the home than there is to do outside of the home. And that those routine tasks, it's a lot. If you skip a day of feeding pets or kids, it's very noticeable. If you skip a weekend of mowing the lawn, your neighbor might roll their eyes, but it's okay. And so, the relentless work that comes with those everyday routine tasks that tend to be coded female, that's when I think you see this imbalance happen. And so, equality is when both partners take on half of the physical tasks - the washing the dishes, the mowing the lawn - and half of the cognitive tasks, which is anticipating the needs that are happening in the house. And basically, I say the project management work that comes with a household. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:27.000 [CALM MUSIC] 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:28.000 All of that "project management" work is something that Kate and other researchers in this field call "cognitive labor." It describes so much of the work that tends to go unnoticed. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:29.000 It's not just about, let's say, cooking dinner and washing dishes. Those are the physical tasks. You have to anticipate, what am I going to feed everyone for the week? You have to anticipate, when am I going to have time to pop into the grocery store to buy the ingredients? When do I have to start the prep so that I can get everything on the table by a certain time? 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000 And like Kate, I feel like I'm doing cognitive labor all the time. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.000 I know I do cognitive labor in the shower. I do cognitive labor when I'm on my commute to and from work or in the car, when I'm exercising, when I'm laying in bed, awake at night. Cognitive labor comes in all of these other forms and creeps into your daily schedule and isn't often documented in a way that we can really tackle it. 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:32.000 So much of our gendered household dynamics are learned behaviors. Kids mimic what they see from their parents. Which is why I wanted to talk to my mom about this. For my entire life, my mom has taken on the vast majority of the housework and my dad has been the main income earner for our family, working out of his home office. And for a long time, that seemed to work for them. But my dad just recently retired, and my mom was telling me, she feels differently than she did in the past. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:33.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Like when Baba was working and he would come down after being in his office for a long time, he would bring some plates down and he would just put it in the kitchen and leave. Now if he does that, I get kind of upset with him. And I say, "Why can't you, instead of putting the plates right in the sink, why can't you just put them in the dishwasher? Why can't you just load it right away?" You know? And he thinks that I'm obsessive about tidiness. I said, "No, it's just that somebody has to do it. You don't think … You think they magically appear in the dishwasher?" 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:35.000 Right. Right. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:36.000 And he said, "Well, don't do it. I'll do it." I said, "But when will you do it?" So little things like that, I find that before I would cut him slack and say, you know, he's working, he's busy in the office. So I would do things. I would even take his lunch for him upstairs and then stuff like that. But now, expectations are different. I just want him to … 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.000 So, your expectations have changed. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:38.000 My expectations have changed, and he's having a hard time, I think, adjusting to it. So, he will get there because I'm going keep expecting it. [LAUGHS] 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:39.000 [LAUGHS] You're like, well, he's gotta get there because I'm there already. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.000 He's gotta get there. Yeah. I just want somebody to … like another person by my side to think about everything and just do it automatically. [CHUCKLES] But maybe this is just too much to ask. I don't know. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:41.000 [GENTLE MUSIC] 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:42.000 What I'm supposed to say now is something about how great my dad is, right? How he's obviously not malicious or uncaring, how he takes the lead on a lot of male-coded things in their partnership. And it's all true. But hearing my mom say all this made me think about how we can negotiate, and even renegotiate, the terms of our partnership. For me, the idea of having a partner who shares the cognitive load is super important. In fact, I told Kate, it's something I mentioned in my wedding vows, how I appreciate my partner for being able to recognize when I've got cognitive overload and even share some of that weight. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:43.000 I am in love with the fact that you put those in your wedding vows. And I think that people need to know about that. [CHUCKLES] 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:44.000 But that doesn't mean that we get it right all the time, and I wanted to ask Kate for help. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:46.000 This is the part where I struggle, Kate. For all the great things that my partner does and is, our friction around parity often is based on cognitive load stuff. So exactly the example you just gave, I'm already thinking about what's for dinner tomorrow. He is not. I'm bothered that he's not. Now for him, the solution is: You should just stop worrying about what's for dinner tomorrow. Just stop worrying, it's fine. And my point is, if I don't think about it now, it won't get done. The thinking won't get done for it. So … [CHUCKLES] what do you say to people who find themselves falling into this exact same pattern? 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:47.000 I think what you just described is where a lot of people find themselves. We're not married, or we're not partnered with people who are wholly rejecting this idea, right? And our partners are people who want to help out and want to step in. And this is an argument that I've had in my own relationship as well. What I find when my husband and I disagree now about this sort of thing, a lot of it comes down to values. Not big values, but the little gendered values where I think it's a quality issue, right? What I think has to be done in the home is different than what he has to think is done in the home. You mentioned dinner, so maybe your partner thinks, yeah, if nothing gets done, then we both make a PB and J 10 minutes before, and then we sit down together and that's fine. And maybe that's what happens if no one anticipates meals. And maybe you do that for two or three nights before you think, this is kind of gross, I don't want another PB and J for dinner. So, let's think through the next couple of days. And maybe that is okay for him because he wasn't raised to take care of a household the way you probably were being raised as a woman. Whereas you're thinking, if no one does anything about this, it's gonna be last minute, we're both gonna be grumpy. We're both going to be hangry, right? We're gonna snip at each other. We're gonna either pay too much money for a last-minute takeout, or we're gonna eat something that we don't really wanna be eating from the recesses of our kitchen cabinets. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:48.000 Totally. From my inner consciousness to your lips, Kate. Yeah. Literally. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.000 [LAUGHS] I think sometimes, and I use this in a fabricated couple that I sort of made up, that was a conglomerate couple. And my advice to this couple was that one of them needs to raise her standards and one needs to lower her standards. So, that they both might come to the relationship with different values, but once you're together, you need to agree on a value as a couple. And the way that you behave when your partner's out of town and you're on your own might be a little bit different. But when you're both in town and you're both with each other and sharing a space, what kind of value do you have around dinner? Are you gonna eat together seven nights a week? Are you gonna have a home-cooked meal seven nights a week or five nights a week? I think that these are conversations worth having so that you can agree on the level where we need to be. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:50.000 [ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.000 I decided to put Kate's advice to the test and at least start a conversation with my husband about our values around dinner and meal prep. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:52.000 Why do you have a notebook? 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.000 Oh, I just like to write when I think. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.000 Okay. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.000 I'll just scribble actually. Not even write. [LAUGHS] 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:56.000 [SHUMITA CHUCKLES] 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:57.000 Michael grew up in an Italian family, and seeing men cooking has always been a big part of his culture. But he says, the men in his family were usually responsible for "special meals" and the women made the more routine, everyday, "we just gotta eat" meals. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:58.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:59.000 Between the two of us, who do you think prepares more of these types of meals? 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:00.000 [LAUGHS] Which ones, the everyday? 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.000 Yeah. Let's start with the everyday. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:02.000 Well, I guess … I mean, you know the answer to that. [LAUGHS] 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:03.000 I know, I know. I know that I know. I know that you know the answer too, but I'm saying … 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.000 It's you, of course. Yeah. I think you're better at it. I think you're more "we need to get it done," so you get it done. Where I feel … 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:05.000 Michael said he'd be more willing to take on more of the routine, weeknight meals if we made them a little more exciting. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:06.000 Right. Exciting meaning I need to feel excited about what I'm cooking. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Yeah. Yeah. Whereas for me, that's not really a requirement. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:08.000 Right. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:09.000 But I need to know that it's gonna happen. That it's gonna be taken care of. That's what I need, I need the security. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Right. I mean, regardless … I mean, regardless, we're not going hungry. Right? So … 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.000 No, I know. But I also, I mean, for me, what would feel like a failure is if we take takeout five nights a week. Like, that would, to me, feel like we have failed to accomplish the thing of being a partnership that takes care of each other if we're just totally outsourcing that. Like yeah, that's sometimes going to be a solution, but I would feel like it was a failure if that was always the solution. So, it's good to talk about … 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.000 If it sounds like we're starting to get on each other's nerves there, that's because we kind of are. So, I tried bringing up what Kate had told me that part of the answer is that one person has to lower their standards and the other person has to raise them. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:13.000 It's not a nice feeling of being the person that needs to go higher, raise their standard. I think it's a position of power to go lower. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:14.000 Oh, that's interesting. Say more about that. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.000 Well, because you feel, like, up to your level. So that … And, you know, I wonder … I don't think we'll ever … we were just gonna keep on spinning our wheels about how to deal with cognitive load because it's built inherently into how I see the world and I want to be in the world and how you see the world and want to be in the world and you take on the world. We're just two different people. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:16.000 [LIVELY MUSIC] 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.000 We ended the conversation feeling like we hadn't really accomplished much. But I've gotta say, we've kept going back to it ever since then and trying to come up with new ways to be more fair with our meal planning. There's no quick fix, but we care about this, so we're working on it. Now, Michael and I don't have children, but adding a kid to the mix makes things even more complicated. In her book, Kate points to a study of different-sex couples that had mostly achieved gender parity before having children. But after their first baby, the father's share of housework actually declined by an average of 10 hours per week. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:18.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:19.000 Fewer hours than they did before the child was born? 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:20.000 Fewer hours than they did before. Exactly. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.000 I don't know what to say about that. What does that, what does that mean? 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:22.000 [LAUGHS] That means we have work to do, Shumita. That's what that means. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:23.000 [CHUCKLES] I guess so. I guess so. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.000 I mean, I think we need to talk about maternal gatekeeping here, which I understand is a hard topic for a lot of women. I'm the last person who wants to blame women for anything at all. But I think you have women that feel like they have to do this perfect job in a domestic space or else they're going to be judged. They're gonna be judged by their family, they're gonna be judged by their peers. That their value as a human is wrapped up in how smoothly that household runs and how well their kids are doing. So, you then bring in a partner, and you have a new child, and you have these very, very high expectations of what a mother's supposed to do. And that male partner who hasn't been raised with the same values and gendered expectations maybe doesn't care if the baby's outfit is mismatched. [CHUCKLES] Doesn't care if the packed lunch is organic, right? Just isn't as attuned to some of these social pressures that women are attuned to. And I think that's when maternal gatekeeping can happen. And then it's this assumption that, "I'm the mom, I know best. You back off, let me handle this. I'm gonna take control of the house. Everything's going to be perfect. And then I won't be judged." And I think, you tell you tell a male partner to back off often enough, he's gonna back off, right? You only need to say it a few times before he starts to internalize, "She's better at this. She's the mom. I'm just gonna back away. I'm gonna bring home money, and I'll be here when she needs me, and I'll do what she wants me to do to help." And so, I think that accidentally, people of all genders kind of help this helper-manager relationship perpetuate. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.000 Mm. By being an assistant to their partner, instead of an equal. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.000 Exactly, exactly. Being an equal partner means that men have to step up. And it also means that women doing that female role have to step back a little bit. And that can be just as awkward and painful. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.000 As awkward and painful as it can be, Kate has suggestions for how to do it. And some of her ideas come from people who have achieved gender parity in their partnerships. She identified a group of 40 men who were all equal partners. That means that they take on about half of the physical and mental load of their households. She calls them the EP40. And she says, aside from the way they function in their partnerships, they didn't have a whole lot in common. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:28.000 Shumita, I was really hoping to find one glaring magic bullet that brought all of them together, so the title of my book could be, "Feed Men Broccoli and They're Going to be Equal Partners." [CHUCKLES] There wasn't any. There were patterns. A quarter of them came from single-parent households. And that was a really powerful experience. More than half of them had been othered, growing up. Either the only kid with a disability or a kid in some sort of minority group. So, there were patterns, but in terms of linking all 40 of them together, they really did come from 40 different, unique backgrounds. And that bummed me out when I first started coding all of my interviews 'cause I thought, "Oh, this is not leading where I thought it was going to go." But then I just sort of flipped it upside down and thought, "Well, if there's no one way to become an equal partner, then the best part of this is that anyone can be an equal partner." And none of them did it without help. They all needed some kind of support and help. It's nothing that we should assume someone can necessarily do a hundred percent on their own, but they all made it to the same place, and they all have the same path now. And that was really inspiring for me because I hear a lot of excuses like, "Oh, that's just not how I was raised," or "That's just not how we do it in my culture." Well, these EP40, only two of them came from households that modeled parity. Thirty-eight of them came from households that were very traditional. Several of them even came from violent and abusive households. And they overcame all of that to have an equal partnership today. So, I don't really give a lot of weight anymore when I hear people say, "It wasn't the way I was raised" because these EP40, it wasn't the way they were raised either. And they still decided that this is the way they wanted to live their life today. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.000 Yeah. So, are there any particular strategies that you would say you took away, that these men are applying in their lives to avoid falling into gender roles and gender norms? 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:30.000 The number one takeaway was communication. And that seems like a bit of a throwaway because it's what everyone talks about, but the communication that they explained to me, yes, there is the day-to-day logistics communication. "Are you picking up this? Okay, I'll get that. Are you gonna be home for this?" That's obviously very important, but it's a deeper level of communication. It's about having those conversations about values, having conversations about gender, having conversations about, "This is how I feel when this happens," and "This is how we can both make it better." Listening to each other, it isn't just a conversation about how the person doing the female role is feeling overburdened. It also needs to be a conversation about how the person doing the male role might feel pressured into certain behaviors because they have to bring home a certain amount of money or because they have to role model security and stability. So, I think one of the big lessons is communication, but on a deep level, you have to be in tune with each other's emotions and moods, and you know each other's triggers. If a trigger is a sink full of dishes, and you know that your partner is coming back from a three-day work trip, clean out the sink. [CHUCKLES] Right? Like, it's just, it's little things. It's thoughtful, small actions that show each other that "I get you, and I love you enough to do this for you." 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:31.000 Can I just put this observation out there? It seems to me like my friends who are in same-sex partnerships do a lot of talking about who's doing what, and my friends in different-sex partnerships, ones that might have a more traditional female role and male role, kind of under-scrutinize or under-talk about who does what. What is that? Is that just me? Is that everybody? 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:32.000 No, I think that makes a lot of sense when you explain it that way. I mean, people who are in the LGBTQ community have been forced to reckon with gender fluidity and gender norms and rewriting norms because that's their life, right? And so, you're sort of forced to have those conversations and thoughts. And I think through that practice, you become more comfortable with it. So, the same-sex couples that I interviewed had talked about it in depth and were very comfortable having conversations about gender. Whereas, I agree with you, different-sex couples, I think, tend to do a little bit more falling into patterns of what their parents did. Which I think is why one question that I think is a great question to talk about when you're first getting together is, "Tell me about the home that you grew up in. And do you think that's something you'd like to replicate in our home together, or is that something that you think should change?" Because I think a lot of people, without the intention, just start mimicking patterns that they grew up with, even if they weren't great patterns. And if you don't really take the time to think about, yeah, okay, there are things that my parents did that were great, and I'd love to replicate, and there are things that maybe I'd really like to change for my relationship. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:33.000 So, I'll just tell you, so I'm a child of immigrants. My mom grew up in Iran. My dad grew up in India. There's a lot of cultural baggage that enters the room and sort of cultural expectations that can enter the room from your other family members. [CHUCKLES] 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:34.000 Absolutely. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:35.000 What's your advice for navigating that? If you are trying to live out a different dynamic, then what is typically dictated in your own family culture? 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:36.000 I had a man from my EP40 who's in this exact same situation. He lives in Texas and his family is extremely traditional in terms of gender roles. And he and his partner are working very hard to have parity. And he says little things like, the family will split. So, all the men will go and drink beers and be together outside, and all the women will cook and then they'll serve the men. And he said, I will spend a half hour with the men and then I will get up and I will go help the women and I will serve the men with the women. And he said, the first time I did that, everyone was very uncomfortable. But he said, now they're sort of used to it. They're like, oh, that's just what he does. [CHUCKLES] And he said that more recently, some of his younger cousins have started to approach him, asking questions. He said, he's been role modeling this behavior for a decade now, but they're just starting to say like, "Hey, why do you do that?" You know? And "Why does your wife like that? And what does that mean for your relationship?" And he's really proud that just by sticking to his values and not pretending to be something that he's not when he's with his family, while also maintaining that respect, has now opened this conversation with younger family members. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:37.000 Oh, how lovely. [CHUCKLES] How lovely is that. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:38.000 [CHILL MUSIC] 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:39.000 I wanted to ask Kate for some final pieces of advice for couples that want to work toward parity, but don't know where to begin. In her book, Kate includes a list of 10 questions for couples who are just starting a relationship. Some of these questions include, "Are you comfortable telling each other that you've done an invisible task?" or "How important do you think saying 'thank you' is when it comes to household work?" But there's one question in particular that she says is really important to address. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:40.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT] 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:41.000 Do we think that the person who earns more money doesn't have to do as much in the home, or do we think the person who has to work more hours doesn't have to do as much in the home? There's really no right or wrong answer. The answer is what the two of you agree on. But I do find a lot of couples that 10, 15 years in, that is a sticking point, right? And that's especially important in different-sex relationships because we know that there's a wage gap for women, especially women of color. And so, if the higher earner doesn't have to do as much at home, then all we're doing is perpetuating that cycle by adding to her household load, which prevents her from doing more professionally, which then cycles back to making less money, which makes her do more in the home. Right? So, it's just kind of starting this nasty cycle. So, I think having those really open conversations early on could be beneficial. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:42.000 And what about your advice to partners who have been together for a longer time? They're not necessarily new, but maybe they're a little new to this conversation. And frankly, also maybe feeling a little stuck in the way that things have operated already for, you know, 5, 10, 25 years. [CHUCKLES] How can they start having a conversation like this? 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.000 I'd like to acknowledge that that is a hard thing to do. So, I do not make these suggestions lightly. Because I know that once you're in patterns that are 15, 20 years old, it is hard to change. So, two suggestions that come to mind. Number one, try to keep it less about the two of you and more about social norms. At least for the first part because then it becomes less about blaming each other for what you do and more about saying, "Listen, we're both survivors of this gendered culture." And that might lead to conversations that are a little bit less contentious. The second piece of advice I have is that changing behavior in the household is a little bit easier when there's some other kind of change in your life, right? So, take advantage. If you move homes, if someone gets a new job, if a parent is ill and needs care, if you get a dog, if your child moves from daycare to elementary school. Find some kind of transition, and use that to say, "Okay, we're gonna have to do things differently because of this. So along those lines, let's also see if we can change a few of our household behaviors at the same time." And maybe not try to go from zero to a hundred overnight, but just pick a few things that are truly realistic. One of the EP40 actually made this suggestion, and he's in a same-sex partnership, and said, when we commit to changing something in our home, we're both very careful not to offer something that is unrealistic and we're very careful not to ask something that is unrealistic. We know each other really well. I'm never gonna ask my partner, I want you to make a five-course meal every night. That's not going to happen. Right? So, set yourself up for success. That's an easy way to say it. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:44.000 I like that a lot. Kate, I could speak to you for another five hours, but I will let you go for now. This was a really, really interesting conversation. Thank you. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Thank you so much for your time today. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.000 [MUSIC FADES IN] 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.000 You can find Kate Mangino's book "Equal Partners" on Apple Books. We have a link for you on our show notes page. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:48.000 [MUSIC FADES OUT]