Thank you for the question.
Absolutely, to care is a human capacity. I would just make that point again. Thank you for picking up on it.
I've studied stay-at-home fathers, single fathers and LGBTQ fathers or gay father households. When men leave work to care, they face the same disadvantages as women in some ways, but one of my colleagues, R. W. Connell, argued many years ago that there is still a patriarchal dividend, so for men, even when they leave work, there is still an assumption that men are primary breadwinners, that there are still connections between men and power and public life.
They don't experience it in the same way socially, but certainly when men leave paid work to care, they do face some of the same disadvantages. Also, having studied this for over 25 years, I'd say they face different challenges, because in communities when fathers go into playgroups and these sorts of what I've called maternal-dominated spaces, it can be very challenging for them. We need to change the social norms. That's why parental leave and paternity leave have been very important to me as a scholar, because when you see men walking around with strollers, as you do in the Nordic countries, it begins to shift the idea that it's only women who can do that work, especially with young children.
I know there are cultural differences around this that we need to be really sensitive to. It means really looking at the social norms and how they are changing, but I would say, having studied men in caregiving, that when men do it, they change enormously, and it has benefits for women, for children and for families. They can do it as well as women can. There should be no difference. Sometimes it's in the eyes of the viewer that they see the difference.