Men Don't Wanna Take Care of No Babies

As I envoke the "liberation of men" to do childcare or other activities not considered traditionally masculine, in the back of my head I hear a conversation from several months ago, back when I was living with a Syrian family on Sharia Baghdad.

Back during the now-unimaginable February cold, I got into a 2-day, well, discussion with them.

It began innocently enough when I came home Friday at around 5pm, planning to eat and then retreat to my room with the Ghassan Kanafani play I had to write an analysis on and the Andalusian poetry I had to lead the class in the following Sunday. As per usual in the biting cold I took my meal in the sobia room, joining Iyad, the unemployed law school graduate midget (literally) and two of his friends. I ate my meal in silence, listening to their conversation. I was soon incorporated into that conversation, which began with the usual "So, how do you like Syria?" (one of the boys I had not met before) and somehow ended up on The Gays and my strange lack of revulsion to their Ways and complete willingness to let them live and marry. "But what is the point of marriage? Children!" Iyad claimed. I told him I know some gay couples with children. But how? That is impossible!

"They adopt. I know people who have done this, and they have beautiful families." That someone could love a child that did not squirm out of her vagina or result from his penile squirt some months previous was denied:"Blood is blood."

That my aunt, with two adopted children, loved them as much as "real" children was as well.

Then we landed on the women. The conversation kept me up until late into the night, preventing me from getting any work done, and spilled over well into Saturday night. One of the highlights was when Iyad denied that men have estrogen and women have testosterone. "Why would women have testosterone? It's obvious they don't. Their voices aren't low, they don't have hair." But his insistance that men do not have estrogen was even stronger. "Of course they don't! What, is it for their period?" The next day, when I returned from Sitt Zeinab and teaching English to Iraqi kids, Iyad was in the sitting room, triumphantly looking over his highschool biology textbook. He pointed me to the short passage, where it said that testosterone was the male hormone, and listed its effects on the male during puberty. Estrogen is the female hormone, with its effects. And progesterone is also a female hormone, with its effects. The complete passage was three small paragraphs - hardly what I would call comprehensive review of the complicated subject of hormones. I considered letting him believe what he wants, but instead printed out some more complete information from the internet, which identified the existance of all three hormones in both sexes and even included the gem about how while most men have more testosterone than most women, the ranges for both sexes are very wide and overlap, thus some women have more testosterone than some men.

The hormones came up because wehad been talking about the babies.

Iyad insisted that full equality was impossible, and sarcastically asked me if we should make men pregnant, because it isn't equal that women have to go though that. "That must be hard." I told him not to act like I am an idiot - naturally women have a womb, but the moment after birth why can't the man take care of the baby?
"Because they don't have attifiya (kindness and feelings) like a woman!"

Abu Mazen joined in to ask me why I was mad about this if it is what God wants. Being a mother and taking care of children is an honored and respected role. I was accused of thinking of childbearing and taking care of the home as an "insult". No, I insisted, it's not an insult, which I why I want men to be free to do childcare as well. Why should that be denied to them?
"What, you want all men to stay home and take care of children?" Iyad asked.
"No, but both parties should be free to choose what they want to do. In some families, the woman may want to take care of the children, and the man may want to work. In some families, the man may want to stay at home, and the woman may want to work. In other families, both want to or have to work so they share raising the children 50-50. What's wrong with that?"
"If the man stays home he is lazy."

This allowed me to appeal to Um Mazen, asking her if raising 6 children had been easy. She looked at me like I was crazy, saying of course not. Um Mazen was not exactly on my side during the debate, telling me several times that while girls are loved, boys are preferred. And that God loves men more than women. But at least she told her son that raising kids is not the lazy choice.

During the converstation, no one present had a problem with women working, but the problem was with men take on such a feminized role. Childcare is an honored and respected role, unless a man takes it on and then he is a lazy pussy. Of course, this is far from a Syria-specific double standard, and reflects the situation in most of the world.

But it was a fun conversation in that I was also asked several times if I hated men.