Trends have to start somewhere. But I'm convinced that as long as a male teacher's aide is considered a less desirable prospect than a male CEO, we're going to see shitty gender roles that limit and oppress us.
Individuals of whatever gender exist within incentive landscapes, and they act within those landscapes to result in the best life for them. Many men and women wish they had different incentive landscapes to navigate through. My argument would be that creating a world where men and women can choose their paths according to their individual dispositions without penalty would result in one where more men and women are happy, which is why I'd like to nudge our existing world in that direction.
Adding incentives, nudging, and valorizing specific actions puts equality of outcome over equality of choice.
We shouldn't push a trend to respect and valorize men who stay home more than those who work. We should push a trend to respect them equally
We are in violent agreement.
Where I thought we differed is providing preferential incentives to men who stay home over those who work.
I'll buy the part about adding incentives.
Nudging and valorizing, however, are inevitable aspects of human life. Abolishing heroism is not realistic (and, honestly, it's a pretty mild incentive anyway).
About half the men I know with kids would prefer to be primary care taker.
If we somehow convince more men to want to be the primary caretaker, and feel more strongly about does that necessarily make the world a better place? It means both more men and more women don't get what they want.
Couples with compatible desires in line with the status quo would be unaffected. Couples with compatible desires opposite the status quo would purely benefit. Couples with discordant desires would negotiate the allocation of responsibilities more freely without social expectations biasing the outcome, which would lead to one partner benefiting and the other losing, but in a way that's either neutral or leads to a net benefit across the two individuals.
There is also the hypothetical idea that stay at home dads get a called pussies, but I've never seen it come up.
Hell, until recently it was only women who had access to maternity leave, paternity leave in most countries seems to be quite a new concept.