The role prioritization model: How communal men and agentic women can (sometimes) have it all

Abstract

Men and women are persistently associated with breadwinning and caregiving roles and related stereotypes. A role prioritization model (RPM) is presented that accounts for the conditions under which penalties and benefits arise due to perceived fulfillment or neglect of communal/caregiving roles (typically associated with women) and agentic/breadwinning roles (typically associated with men). Our model makes unique contributions to understanding gender stereotyping and negative evaluations for stereotype violation (i.e., backlash). First, behaviors suggesting low prioritization of one's traditional gender role—when women appear to neglect caregiving and men neglect breadwinning—produce particularly harsh judgments. Second, behaviors indicating successful balancing of role prioritization (e.g., men who augment breadwinning with communal behavior and women who augment childrearing with agentic behavior) allow avoidance of backlash. The RPM is useful for organizing existing research on gendered perceptions and for understanding perceptions of men and women who violate gender norms to create greater gender equality.

Work-family guilt: A straightjacket keeping parents into traditional gender roles

“…Research confirms that men and women receive praise for engaging in gender-typical behavior and penalties for engaging in gender a-typical behavior (for an overview, see Haines, 2019). In comparison with mothers who appear to prioritize their caregiving role, mothers who appear to prioritize work are judged to be worse parents (Morgenroth & Heilman, 2017;Okimoto & Heilman, 2012), more selfish people (Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2005) and even face harassment (Berdahl & Moon, 2005).…”

“…In line with this gendered division of labor, societal norms for working parents remain traditional. Working mothers are still expected to be the main caregiver and prioritize their caregiving responsibilities whereas working fathers are still expected to be the main breadwinner and prioritize their work responsibilities (Haines & Stroessner, 2019;Morgenroth & Heilman, 2017;Park, Smith, & Correll, 2010). When US adults are asked about what would be the ideal situation for parents with young children, 76% reports that having a fulltime job is the ideal situation for a father while only 33% thinks that this is the ideal situation for a mother (Pew Research Center, 2019b).…”

“…For example, in comparison to men, women still less often have a paid job, take more career breaks and work fewer paid hours (European Commission, 2018). Furthermore, women still shoulder a disproportional amount of childcare and household chores relative to fathers (Craig & Mullan, 2010;Sayer, England, Bittman, & the workplace powerful women are judged to be insufficiently nice, and modest men are evaluated less favorable (Judge, Livingston, & Hurst, 2012;Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010) The Role Prioritization Model builds upon these two related theories and adds that as long as parents are seen as properly prioritizing the responsibilities belonging to their gender, the behavior will be judged acceptable (Haines, 2019). For instance, an ambitious, full-time working woman can still be seen as a great mother as long as it is clear that her work does not undermine her ability to always put her children first.…”

“…For many working fathers and mothers, their roles as worker and parent are at the core of their identity. However, the degree to which the worker role or the parent role are emphasized, remains heavily intertwined with parents' gender (for a recent overview, see Haines, 2019). Although today it is considered acceptable that mothers earn at least some of the family income and fathers do at least some of the household and childcare, when parents prioritize the gender a-typical domain, backlash is likely to occur (e.g., a mother who goes into work even though her child has the flu will be judged as a bad parent while for a father the same behavior is judged acceptable; Okimoto & Heilman, 2012).…”

“…Research indeed shows that on days that mothers experience more work-family guilt, they think more about reducing their working hours and make plans to increase the time they spend with their children (Aarntzen, Derks, Van Steenbergen, Ryan, & Van der Lippe, 2019). Furthermore, given that societal gender norms still prescribe mothers, but not fathers, to prioritize childcare over work (for an overview, see Haines & Stroessner, 2019), it seems likely that mothers experience more work-family guilt than fathers.…”