Sociologist and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Professor Scott Coltrane, lectured to a crowd of students, faculty, and community members Wednesday on
gender equality, family and fathering.
“The world has changed,” Coltrane emphasized. Young couples, he said, now have to negotiate and plan around sharing parenting responsibilities.
“It’s no longer possible for men to be left off the hook,” Coltrane said.
The lecture, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society, focused on how parenting has changed and how society and the media portrays father figures.
Coltrane, who also has two journal articles and a chapter in a book all releasing this month, said he began his work after the birth of his first child. When his wife became pregnant, he looked for books that discussed a father’s role in child rearing and found none. In the 1980s, Coltrane delved further into the topic to learn why men are interested in fathering, what conditions encouraged their involvement and the influence this has on children.
His studies, which have recently focused on working class families, have shown that for the most part, men are getting more involved in raising children because they want to, not because of feminism or gender ideals. However, Coltrane’s studies can help explain gender roles outside of fatherhood.
Carol Stabile, director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society, said there is a
connection between Coltrane’s work and understanding gender.
Coltrane theorizes that parenting has transformed in the past 30 years, due in large part to women entering the work force. During the 1950s, psychologists and sociologists who studied families and parents focused solely on mothers. Recently, people have begun to share parenting responsibility, causing focus to shift to the father.
Rather than following the old formula of mothers being the primary caregiver and fathers providing the income, families are coming up with ways to share the work. For example, Coltrane discussed one study that found that from 1965 to 2003, men’s daily contribution to housework doubled.
“A lot of things my father would never do I did, and a lot of the things that were hard for me are gonna be easier for my son,” Coltrane said.  
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