From Chasing Mammoths to Chasing Toddlers: Challenging Gender Norms in Family Law —

For years, the notion that early human society had a strict division of labour—men as hunters and women as gatherers—has shaped scientific thought and cultural norms. Parenting time and the mental load of caregiving in a post separation/divorce is a clear indicator of how deeply engrained these stereotypes related to ‘bioessentialism’ are, but evolving dynamics are beneficial for both genders. A new study by researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University challenges this long-standing belief, revealing that women played a significant role in hunting across most societies.

The researchers, led by Cara Wall-Scheffler, revisited ethnographic reports from the 1800s to the present, focusing on the actual written accounts rather than relying on summaries. Their findings, published in PLOS One, show that in 79% of the societies studied, women actively participated in hunting, often with different tools and strategies. Contrary to the belief that women only hunted opportunistically, the study found that women were frequently trained hunters who purposefully sought out game, including large mammals traditionally associated with male hunters – like mammoths. The study also found that the best hunters were not chiseled Adonis but older women who hunted in small groups.

These findings challenge the entrenched myth of gendered labour roles in early human societies. Society has used this narrative to justify modern gender roles and stereotypes, promoting the idea of men as natural breadwinners and women as primary caregivers. This myth has fueled toxic masculinity and restricted policies like paternity leave. It has also markedly impacted parenting time schedules in family law. Gender essentialism, the belief that men are better suited to specific roles than women and vice versa, is an outdated model that needs to change for the benefit of both men and women.

Traditional theories suggest that women do more housework and childcare because they have more time at home, as men often work more hours outside. With their more significant income, men may also negotiate their way out of household tasks. However, these explanations don’t fully capture the gender differences in childcare, particularly the “mental load,” or the cognitive effort involved in managing household tasks. Recent research shows that women tend to bear more of this mental load, even when they work longer hours outside the home, due to deep-rooted societal norms and beliefs about gender roles. In post-separation/divorced couples, this gendered division of the mental load typically continues.

Consider the following quote from a British mother, Felicity, whose ex-partner has their children for three nights a week:

I started working away for a little while, and so I was spending two nights a week [away]. So for these two nights, he had to have them, and I just wasn’t there to do it. … I used to hand the children over with school uniform like washed and ironed in a little pile, for them to give to them for the next day. And I was not there to do that, so he had to do it, so he had to start washing their uniform, he had to start making sure he got their pack lunch. I used to get them there with a pack lunch made and snack and their drinks made, so that he would literally just have to get them up and dressed in the morning, hand them their bag and take them to school. So I don’t do that anymore, so even he commented to me a little while ago that he’d finally got his act together, because it forced him to do it.

The above quote is from a research paper by Renee Luthra and Tina Haux from the University of Essex. An interesting finding in the paper was the division of the mental load among high-conflict post-separation families.  This study explores how the mental load, or the cognitive effort involved in managing children’s needs, can shift in high-contact post-separation families. Fathers who successfully push back against mothers’ gatekeeping to gain more time with their children often take on more mental load. In cases where fathers had non-traditional work schedules before separation, they could use this to retain decision-making power over their children despite mothers’ gatekeeping attempts. In high-conflict families, the traditional “manager-deputy” dynamic between parents often breaks down, leading to separate and independent childcare systems. However, in more amicable separations, changes in working lives and time availability can lead to a shift in gender roles, with mothers becoming more accepting of fathers’ involvement in childcare and seeing it as less of a gendered task. This shift can also lead to a renegotiation of the mental load between the parents. Renegotiating the mental load leads to more competent fathers and less labour for mothers.

There are other benefits when mothers carry less mental load in situations with roughly 50/50 parenting schedules. Career outcomes are better for women with competent co-parents. However, mothers do have to “let go” of the reins and allow fathers to learn as they did, through trial and error. Women are not born with an innate knowledge of caregiving and childrearing any more than men are born with innate leadership and math skills. Dads will make mistakes. He might serve cold pizza for breakfast because he forgot to get milk the night before. Anyone can learn to iron school uniforms, pack lunches, and make snacks if Felicity’s ex-husband can.

The outdated belief in gender essentialism—that men and women are naturally suited to specific roles—has long shaped societal expectations and justified inequality. However, the above studies show that when courts give fathers the chance to take on more responsibility, they rise to the occasion, becoming more competent and engaged parents. It’s time to embrace a new narrative where both mothers and fathers share the mental load, allowing for more balanced, fulfilling lives for everyone involved. When we let go of outdated stereotypes, we open the door to a more equitable future, where caregiving and leadership are seen as human skills, not gendered ones.