| brucekluger.com |
Newsweek, January 31, 2000
Breaking Through the Estrogen Ceiling As a stay-at-home dad and a writer on family issues, I'm tired of being considered a parental also-ran By Bruce Kluger In her new book, Stiffed, author Susan Faludi struggles to define men in an era in which, she says, they struggle to define themselves. "The ordinary man is no fool," she concludes. "He knows he can't be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nonetheless the culture reshapes his most basic sense of manhood by telling him... that masculinity is something to drape over the body, not draw from inner resources."
on Ms. Faludi's theory—I'm too busy. Indeed, the only thing draped over my body these days is a Snuggli, the occupant of which is my 11-month-old daughter, Audrey. And she's got me running. No, this is not another of those stay-at-home-dad diaries, a charming collection of self-
honest, I'm not in a very charming mood these days. Last year I left my job as a senior editor at Playboy to begin writing full time about being a dad. I'd done this as a freelancer ever since the birth of my older daughter, Bridgette, in 1995. I dreamed of landing a regular gig in the universe of family journals, and my resume backed me up. In addition to editing for Playboy, I'd written about sex and relationships for women's magazines and about pregnancy for a family Web site and had been a contributor to a bride's magazine. Now, I ask you, from the altar to the bedroom, do I sound like a well-rounded fellow or what? Apparently not. After a solid year of turndowns, evasions and downright sexist rejections, I began to fear that I'd no sooner make a living writing a daddy's column than I would start for the Knicks this season. I had crashed into the estrogen ceiling. Although my research is not as exhaustive as Ms. Faludi's, it's becoming clear that men really aren't a very hot commodity when it comes to writing about parenting. It wasn't just when I noticed that a leading parents' magazine hadn't one male editor in its masthead; nor was it when an editor at a family Web site interrupted me— midpitch—to announce, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but we're not interested in running pieces from the male point of view at this time." It's the overall sense that it's not my ideas that are getting the veto here (that I could take—I get rejected for a living). It's me, the guy—the guy who writes about girl things—who's getting the boot. To wit: for the thousands of words I'd submitted about being a husband and father (everything from dealing with a spouse's postpartum depression to the mixed emotions of expecting a second child), not one of these editors had ever commented on the content of my proposals. Just no thanks and no sale. Consequently, I've been forced to supplement our household income with more male-appropriate assignments (an article on extreme sports for a TV magazine, some interview editing for a political journal), while continuing to get body-blocked by journalism's female gatekeepers. So tell me, what does a guy have to do to be one of the girls around here? When I complain about this—which is often—I hear myself sounding bitter and delusional, as if I've fabricated some nefarious cabal of women bent on keeping me and my fellow dads down on the back lawn. I now understand the frustration the feminist pioneers must have felt at the outset: clam up and nothing changes; speak up and they label you noisy and nuts. But at least the Steinems and Friedans could get journalists to listen to—and publish—their list of beefs. I can't even get an editor to print a piece about making Jell-O with my kid. It's confounding, really. How are we supposed to explain a society that bends over backward to ensure equality between the sexes in the workplace, but out here on the street (and in the aisles of the grocery store and along the stroller paths in the park) still considers dads perpetual parental also-rans? Even before I started this quest in earnest, I could detect a potent XX-chromosome bias in the culture when it came to parenting. I am frequently approached on the street by women (and, sorry, it's always a woman), eager to tell me I'm holding my child improperly, or her socks aren't on right, or watch out, she may choke on that toy she's playing with. But the capper to all of this occurred on the way back from dropping Bridgette off at school this morning. A passenger on the bus—a middle-aged woman—noticed Audrey sleeping against my chest and commented, "She's so cute. Where's the mother, at work?" When I said yes, the woman responded with a knowing smile: "Ah, then you're playing Mommy today." Oh, what I'd give to have been the real Arnold at that moment.
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