Mother reflects on working with children: "If a woman does it, it's normal; if a man does it, he's a hero"
Chloe Sexton is a mother with clear ideas and for this reason she tries to make the whole web participate in her philosophical musings. The question that Chloe wants to ask to make us think about is simple: why, if we see a woman shopping with a baby in her arms, we have no reaction; while if we see a man in that same situation we call him a "hero"? Hero is a strong word, for sure, but what Chloe wants to point out is that a man doing any domestic or household activity - like caring for a child - draws our attention as if he were doing something that is not really his regular responsibility and we praise the efforts he is making. Chloe, using her videos on TikTok, is committed to debunking this prejudice that we have probably "incorporated" into our mental worlds without even realizing it.
Chloe has a bakery in Memphis, Tennessee (USA), where she serves customers and suppliers. She lives with her husband and two children and, as you can imagine, both of them are very busy. Despite her many duties, however, Chloe manages to maintain a significant presence on social media, especially on TikTok, where she has more than a million followers. In one of her videos, the woman recounted an incident that amazed her in particular. One day, she posted a video where her husband went to help her at the bakery during his day off. Many users were amazed, and praised the sacrifice of the man who, while doing chores, had his baby in his arms.
Why was Chloe surprised? Well, simply because no user had ever reacted that way when she was in the same situation as her husband!
Since the 1960s, a lot of progress has been made in terms of establishing women's rights, freedoms and providing equal opportunities. Of course, we are still a long way from achieving these objectives in their totality, but over the years, the role of women has changed, as well as that of the basic nature of the family unit. Nowadays, a woman does not have to stay at home to look after the children and take care of the housework, but she can choose to venture out into the world and get a career and establish her independence. Unfortunately, this is not a something that applies to all countries of the world, but it is certainly the path which the West (and some other areas of the world) appears to have irrevocably taken.
