Will the Recession Make Men Step Up Around the House?

I've been thinking about this article in Newsweek this week that talks about how the recession may be helping families rebalance.  It argues that now that women account for 40% of the average household's income, men have to take up more of the slack around the house.  They need to do more cleaning, cook more meals, carry more of the parenting weight.  

And this is not just because women now spend more time outside the home, now women have to worry that any time taken off is a mark against her in the workplace.

Because women typically shoulder more of the weight of household management, they are perceived as more likely to allow their home life to interfere with work:

Maternal profiling is real. When a working father takes time off to watch a ballet recital, he's seen as noble. When a working mother rushes out of the office to care for a case of head lice, she's more likely to be labeled undependable. Mothers looking for work are less likely to be hired, are offered lower salaries, and are perceived to be less committed than fathers or women without children, according to a 2005 report by Shelley Correll, now an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University. And according to a 2007 survey by Elle/MSNBC.com, female bosses are twice as likely than their male counterparts to be seen as having family obligations interfere with work.

So, the male counterparts of households need to step up, not only because women don't have as much time to carry a heavier load, but also because if she takes too much time off, she risks losing that job... something that would be detrimental to most families nowadays.  Women's income isn't "supplemental" anymore (yeah, it's not 1950) - it's critical. 

The author of this piece thinks this is a good thing.  It forces men to take responsibility for their half of the family "work" and may lead to a permanent rebalancing of the roles of parents... making them equal partners in the whole undertaking.  

But, in my opinion, if it takes a global recession to get your man to cook dinner half of the time, maybe you married the wrong person.

The silver lining I see here is different.  Perhaps when the amount of time requested off by parents to take their kid to the doctor (or whatever) is equal between men and women, it will no longer seem like "women's work." And maybe, just maybe, women with children won't appear to be any more of a liability than men with children, or hell... any other employee.