Are ‘dysfunctional’ families a thing of the past?

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]pril 5^th 2015, Easter sunday this year and, more importantly, the day a law was made that could have a pretty significant affect on our culture.

Chances are you didn’t see it though, or at least didn’t consider it noteworthy. I’m not exactly the most up-to-date person when it comes to news and politics but I nearly missed something that could greatly impact my life, as the mainstream media was largely preoccupied with General Election updates and some great political satire. Yet while browsing this I stumbled across the rather dull, albeit to the point, headline:

shared parental leave law comes into effect”.

I half expected the following days to produce a viral celebratory speech from feminist figurehead Emma Watson and instead I found that the media, or anybody for that matter, did not seems to consider the changes to be a ‘big deal’. The changed law, in short, means that now other than an initial two weeks of maternity leave for the mother, up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay can be shared between parents. Taken together or separately, all at once or in blocks.

I accept, it doesn’t sound that exciting. However, for me at least, this is a fundamental victory for feminism, arguably as important as the right to vote or equal pay were in their own time. Why?

It is saying to women you no longer have to choose between having children or having a career.

It is normal, and now practical, to have both, either or neither. It is saying to men that staying at home to look after children is an economically viable and socially acceptable choice. It is saying to employers that the cost of maternity leave can no longer be cause for discrimination between men and women when it comes to employment.

Yet the effects will go beyond the workplace. These changes reject the, often subconscious, assumption that the woman’s role is to stay at home and raise children. Equally they reject the assumption that the man’s role is to provide an income to support the family. By changing laws which uphold this patriarchal image of a perfect family we are creating space for a more accepting culture where there is no set expectation of what ‘normal’ families should look like.
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Photo: flickr/erin_ryan