Men must fight for their lives
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Men can do something about balancing work and family.
But it'll
take courage and solidarity, writes Sushi Das.
Courage is an extremely attractive quality in a man. Throughout the ages men have had their mettle tested fighting battles, lifting oppression and changing the course of history. Now it's time for them to face a new test of their courage - one that's closer to home and involves the struggle to balance careers and families.
Confronted by a crushing imbalance in work/family life, caused by inflexible employers and lily-livered governments, will men stand up and defend their hearth and home as so many have done before them?
Melbourne academic Leslie Cannold on this page last Thursday ("In search of the gorgeous Aussie bloke") argued that employers made it difficult for men to modify their work patterns to spend more time with their families. Managers, she said, were good at sending signals that men who put their families first were not serious about their careers and would be struck off the "A-list". This is true.
Take the case of the Bracks Government's "rising star", workaholic Tim Holding, 32, recently promoted to the police portfolio just five years into his parliamentary career. He admits he works up to 15 hours a day and barely has time for anything else. "There's probably not a lot of work/life balance here," he told The Age. The young politician, once married but now single, said: "I have a lifestyle that suits being a member of Parliament. I don't have a young family or anything like that, so I can just throw myself into the job." The implication is that this is how hard you have to work to make it to the top.
Instead of flouting that he has no balance in his life, Holding, as an MP and a role model, should be trying to do something about it.
There is strong evidence that men are not doing enough. A 1999 study of 1000 Australian fathers by the Department of Family and Community Services found 68 per cent felt they had insufficient time with their children, and 53 per cent felt their work and family life interfered with each other. But researchers have also noted that men seldom take leave for child care even when it's available. Go figure.
Without solidarity men can't resist the macho work culture and they leave themselves open to exploitation.
No doubt there are changes that individual men can make towards a fairer work/family balance without waiting for employers to lead the way. Smashing the macho work culture of their own making is one of them. But here men are showing little courage, shying away from making changes that are within their grasp.
For example, men don't have to get to work earlier than the start of their shift to impress the boss. They don't need to stay late, after their work is done, just because it makes them look committed. Many men know deep down that they neglect their families simply because they prefer the challenges and companionship at work.
Men subject each other to subtle pressures that reinforce the ethos that long hours are what you do if you're a real man. When a man leaves the office at the end of his shift, throwaway lines from male colleagues such as "oh, working part-time today, are you?" or "taking an early cut, huh?" invoke guilt, and perpetuate the idea that slaving away at the office is the only way to get ahead.
Men who are senior enough to negotiate individual work contracts should include provisions for a sensible work/life balance. Employers who say they are keen to promote family-friendly workplaces should be held to account through these contracts.
Male managers who are asked by their bosses to increase productivity, which inevitably means longer hours for the men junior to them, should resist the pressure on behalf of their colleagues.
Men who are in a union also have an avenue to demand changes in the workplace to accommodate their families. Every man should ask himself, are the hours that I am working fair to my family? Am I necessarily productive after 10 hours on the job?
Without solidarity men can't resist the macho work culture and they leave themselves open to exploitation. Attitudinal changes towards work/family balance have to start in the hearts of educated men in senior positions - the men who are already on the A-list. Until this happens, men will be doing what women have done for a long time: policing their own oppression.
Leslie Cannold argues that men have been "wrongly excluded from discussions about Australia's low fertility" (and hence discussions about work/family balance). But excluded by whom? Let's admit it, men themselves have failed to engage in these debates because they have up until now viewed these concerns as women's issues.
Angst about work/family balance is now so intense that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is embarking on a project to examine family responsibilities and paid work. A discussion paper will be released soon, calling for submissions from individuals and organisations. Those men who are genuinely fed up with today's work/family balance are being presented with an opportunity to be heard. There is no excuse to remain silent.
In time, employers and governments will have to stop basing their decisions on the backward-looking model of man-as-breadwinner and woman-as-child-rearer, and move towards a new model where men and women are seen as workers and parents.
In the meantime, men hold the key to changing their own mindset - a move they have to make because they have no other choice. Now is the time for courage. Australian men should demand what they know is right for them, their partners, their children and their children yet to come. It's time to be a man.
Sushi Das is an Age journalist.
sdas@theage.com.au
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