Dual Careers and Changing Male Roles

Abstract

That which was first dealt with mockingly in the Women’s Movement as the peccadillo of some aberrant radicals has become a part of our laws, lives, and attitudes. There is and will be a continuing struggle, but from now on the issues addressed will be presented to public awareness as serious legal or moral questions. Despite attempts from some quarters to combat the change by designating it only as a transient deviation from the more natural order of male-female relationships, it is safe to predict that its effect will continue to be felt profoundly in the way men and women interact socially, sexually, and at work. Couples engaged in dual careers will be seen as less of a novelty than previously; yet they will encounter problems different from those inherent in the traditional relationships of man-at-work/woman-at-home. For men, raised by fathers and mothers to see their maleness as inseparable from work habits and traditional attitudes, there will be necessary innovation in relationships with their partners and children. Such shifts will contain the potential for discovery along with the risks attendant on shifts from entrenched styles of interaction.