A few insights on why gender stereotypes suck for everyone involved:
Masculinity, in essence, is something that men earn, rather than something they naturally have, and it therefore exists in a permanently tenuous state. The man card can be revoked at any time. That means that men have to find some way to reinforce their gender role in response to anything that might be seen to threaten it. Loss of income relative to a spouse seems like an especially potent threat to masculinity: earning less than their wives has been linked to men needing erectile dysfunction medication, as well as an increased likelihood of sexual infidelity.
And this Democrat vs. Republican insight was worth evaluating:
I found that Republican men who contributed less to their household income than they did two years prior became significantly less supportive of abortion rights, and the more income that they lost relative to their spouses, the more their support for abortion dropped.
... Among Democratic men, losing income relative to their spouse led them to be, on average, about 0.5 points more supportive of abortion rights, while men who gained income relative to their spouses actually became less supportive. When faced with gender role threat, liberal men come to hold more liberal views on abortion, while conservative men come to hold more conservative views.
Read
more in HBR.
