Milestone in History of U.S. Gender Roles

A milestone in the history of American gender roles was reported in your newspaper but it was buried in the Business Section, so I fear many of your readers missed it. I am, of course, referring to the report that the new Nordstrom department store in Santa Ana will be offering diaper-changing tables in the men’s as well as the women’s restrooms. Your article noted that the tables are being put in the men’s rooms in response to “a crying demand from several male customers.”

This is cheering news for many of us out here who’ve been toiling away for the last two decades to change society’s assumptions about how families function in real life. For us, the Nordstrom restroom revolution is interesting in at least two ways:

First, it indicates that it’s no longer women alone who are demanding changes in society’s accommodation to the family; men brought about this change, they were the ones to stand up for their rights as shopping fathers with wet babies and they deserve to be commended for it.

Second, the fact that this revolution occurred at Nordstrom tells us that it is probably upscale fathers who made these demands. This is not surprising; those in the upper middle classes are usually the first to scream if they feel deprived.

What is notable is that upscale fathers now regard the inability to diaper their babies as a deprivation. These men could well become that generation of male lawyers and doctors and corporate executives who will actually pay attention to demands for parental leaves and convenient, affordable day care.

Social change is glacially slow, to be sure, but in the annals of American gender history, the Santa Ana Nordstrom may come to be honored as a historic site.

VICTORIA BROWN

San Diego