#553 April Bleske-Rechek: Gender Roles, Division of Labor, Occupation and Educational Choices
RECORDED ON AUGUST 12th 2021.
Dr. April Bleske-Rechek is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As a researcher, she focuses on human mating, friendship, cognitive abilities and intellectual giftedness, and science literacy.
In this episode, we talk about a recent paper, “Gendered Perspectives on Sharing the Load: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Family Roles and Household and Childcare Tasks”. We first talk about where the evolutionary bases of the human sexual division of labor. We go through some of the household and childcare tasks men and women prefer. We talk about how the ways men and women share the load changed since the 60s, and in what ways resource allocation might differ between modern industrialized societies and traditional societies. We also spend a lot of time discussing how evolved sex differences translate into occupational and educational preferences, and why this is not a sign of sexism. Toward the end we stress what evolutionary approaches to human behavior are really about – describing behavior – and not about following any political, moral, or ideological agenda, and why people should keep that in mind if they want to understand social phenomena. We also discuss the trade-off women make between family and career.
Time Links:
Intro
The evolutionary bases of the sexual division of labor
The household and childcare tasks men and women prefer
Changes in how men and women share the load
By why do women and men prefer different tasks?
How malleable are these preferences?
Sex differences in occupational and educational choices – is it a problem?
Women’s trade-off between family and career
A final message about looking at thinks through an evolutionary lens
Follow Dr. Bleske-Rechek’s work!
Follow Dr. Bleske-Rechek’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3xyn905
Website: https://bit.ly/3CoZP8P
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3xyeOts
Our first interview: https://youtu.be/GMC-O4jBFdo
Gendered Perspectives on Sharing the Load: https://bit.ly/37mV7Kn