Recently, I stumbled across an article on Today from 2009 about female politicians’ conflict between work and family. I know, it’s not exactly a recent article, but I am quite certain that the issues it presents have not disappeared. It opens by mentioning Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s decision not to run for higher office due to the fact that she has two small daughters. The article goes on to discuss the double standard for men and women in politics: mothers are much more likely than fathers to get asked about how they will balance their political careers with family.

Clearly, the concept of wife and mother being the primary and traditional role of a woman is still ingrained in society’s mind. And I include myself in this: when I think about a male politician being asked about how he juggles being a husband and father, that scenario seems immensely strange to me. I hate that it seems so strange, because it shouldn’t. But the reason it does feel strange is that I cannot recall ever hearing a male politician being asked that. This is the product of a collective mind set about gender roles that has been held by society for generations.

I think it is very possible that this collective mind set subconsciously influences many women who consider running for public office. Perhaps it is one of the reasons there are so fewer women than men in politics. Women with children have this other thing, this family thing, to consider. Men, because of what our collective social mind set implies, do not.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Society has begun to fight its collective mind set. Stay-at-home fathers are becoming more of a norm. We are realizing that wives do not have the be the ones caring for the children while the husband is working. The husband can care for the children just as well as the wife can while the wife is working. I know this because I grew up with a stay-at-home dad and a working mom. Not enough adjectives exist to accurately describe how amazing and loving my dad is, but my point is that dads can do the traditional “mom” things just as well.

I am not saying that I think female politicians should pursue their ambition without regard to their families. I believe that consistent parental presence is crucial to the development of a child, so I understand a decision like Madigan’s. I am only saying that such a decision shouldn’t be made simply because the politician is female. A woman should be able to aim as far as she wants in the political sphere without feeling pressured to make a certain decision about her family or being asked about how she will balance being a mother and a whatever-else. If we could somehow get people in the media to stop asking such questions, perhaps the question will gradually fade from society’s mind. As long as female politicians keep getting asked these questions while male politicians don’t, this concept of gender roles will remain ingrained in our collective mind set. Perhaps female politicians can help by bringing up the subject of gender roles every time they are asked such questions. Then it might become less appropriate for the questions to be asked, which would hopefully help society as a whole understand how we are still perpetuating gender roles in politics.