Gender inequality starts in the delivery room

We were overjoyed to welcome our little boy into the world just over two weeks ago. Mother and baby received wonderful care from the midwives at University College London Hospital and birthing support from the brilliant Avni Trivedi, a qualified doula. But what did the father get? Nothing. The caring infrastructure systematically failed partners. And in doing so, it reinforced the view that women are the primary carers for their child and fathers are the primary earners. Gender inequality really did start in the delivery room.

Here’s how our story went. Post delivery, we spent four nights on a ward: baby in a cot; me in a bed and my husband? On a hard, plastic chair that barely reclined. Not a place where he was going to get a decent night’s sleep (at one point, he was so tired, he fell asleep on the bed and was woken with a stern look from the midwife on duty). When he went to freshen up and use the shower (which you really need to do to feel human again after spending an uncomfortable night on the aforementioned chair), he was scolded by a member of staff for using facilities designed only for patients. And while I was asked repeatedly about my well-being, my husband was patently ignored.

Indeed, in conversations about the baby’s health, all questions were directed at me. Not at the collective unit. But a single member. It’s lucky I had a straightforward delivery and was in the right frame of mind to push back on things that I didn’t want to happen to our baby. What about those mothers, I thought, who had experienced complications and were too exhausted to answer questions? Would their partners be able to effectively advocate for them if they had not slept properly or eaten a decent meal? What if those partners felt daunted by the prospect of looking after a newborn? Who would support them?

And in an ultimate sign that my husband was not considered equivalent to me in the life of our child, his name was not included on the paperwork issued by the hospital to confirm the baby’s birth. That meant he couldn’t even provide proof to his employer that it was his baby that had been born, for which he now needed to be on paternity leave.

I frequently hear two reasons why the system is programmed in this way.

The first is that women give birth and men don’t. Yes women may need more medical attention but saying things won’t be equal between parents until men can give birth is an appalling excuse for lack of action. When I became a mother, my husband became a father. Our child came into both of our lives. It is like saying fathers don’t experience the pain of miscarriage because they are not the ones carrying the child. As Mark Zuckerberg eloquently wrote, they do. But their trauma often goes unseen.

The second is that mothers nurse and fathers can’t. So things cannot be equal in the first few months of a child’s life. But again that’s a misnomer. Many mothers bottle-feed their babies (either from formula or with breastmilk). Once the bottle has been made up, either a mother or a father can give it to the child.

Indeed very little time is devoted to how fathers can bond with their baby in the early days. How they can build confidence in becoming a caring figure in their child’s life. How they can catch up on the 9-month head start that mothers have had. Oh wait, that’s not technically true. My husband was told that he could change all the dirty nappies. But have you ever found a changing station in a men’s room?

Little changes could make a big difference. How about an additional question about the partner’s well-being on a midwife’s regular assessment checklist? Or foldable mattresses for partners staying overnight in the hospital? Or the father’s name on hospital birth documents?

But what we really need are big changes. To parental leave to enable both parents to spend time nurturing their child. To workplace organisation to enable fathers to be equivalent caregivers to mothers. As Anne-Marie Slaughter indicates in her book, “Unfinished Business”, as a society, we will never achieve equality in the workplace if we don’t achieve it in the home. And I believe that we will never achieve it in the home if we continue to have a healthcare system that fails to promote the importance of partners, in whatever form they come, in bringing up a child.

Priya Kothari is a British economist, living in San Francisco. She runs a website, Telling Times, which examines poverty and inequality in America through blogs, podcasts and photos. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.