In reality men and women continue to take on very different roles as parents. The fact is that many fathers are not necessarily around for their children growing up and, for the most part, women still make more dependable parents than men do. Although other women envy my partner’s committment to family, they also admit that they are attracted to men partly because of their masculinity (including caveman instincts).

Imagine: the aliens are arriving and we have to send out our strongest and most resilient fighters. Do we send women? No, if we want to win a fight we send our best fighting men. Men’s advantage is not only their physical strength but also their insensitivity and resilience that enables them to deal with conflict due to the effect of testosterone and adrenaline in their bodies. While we live in a society where we need men to protect and defend, men will never be like women. Until men are able to evolve the same motivation to nurture family, it is likely that women will continue to direct family life whether they work or not.

Equally until women evolve the same motivation to do battle, it is likely that men will continue to be the prime bread-winners in families. Many women do not necessarily want to work in the dangerous, difficult or technical jobs that earn well. Men go into battle not only because they are more suited to it but also because, reproductively, they are more dispensable than women.

“A woman’s basic energy is usually channelled into ‘nurturing spirit’, while a man’s is usually channelled into ‘warrior spirit’” (p18 Why Men don’t get enough Sex and Women don’t get enough Love)

Men lack role models in active parenting

The drive for ‘equal opportunities’ has centred on encouraging women to emulate men’s lives with no parallel suggestion that men should seek to share the rewards of women’s lives.

Women have a clear incentive in wanting things to change. In theory they do less unpaid menial work in the home and more stimulating paid work in employment. But what have their partners to gain? Most men would not choose to do extra domestic work after working full-time in employment even if they were paid to do so. To be honest, who would? What is a gain for women is most distinctly a loss for men.

It does not come easily to a man to take up his share of the parenting role because most men grow up with the role model of a father who had a full-time housewife to run their home and family for them. So when men sign up for parenting they imagine themselves rather like grandparents: attending the occasional school play, football match or reading the odd bed-time story. They specifically don’t see themselves preparing school lunches, vacuuming or helping children with homework.

“I’m an ordinary man who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants.” From the film ‘My Fair Lady’