Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium
Do the religious beliefs of men make them a blessing or a blight
on their family? Some opinion leaders might agree with journalist
Cokie Roberts' characterization of a 1998 Southern Baptist
statement on gender roles as thinking that the statement "can
clearly lead to abuse, both physical and emotional." But a much
different impression emerges from research on Protestant married
men in a new book by W. Bradford Wilcox. Mainline Protestant men,
Wilcox contends in Soft Patriarchs, are "new men" who take
a more egalitarian approach to the division of household labor than
their conservative peers and a more involved approach to parenting
than men with no religious affiliation. Evangelical Protestant men,
meanwhile, are "soft patriarchs"--not as authoritarian as some
would expect and given to being more emotional and dedicated to
their wives and children than both their mainline and secular
counterparts. Either way, Wilcox contends that religion
domesticates men in ways that make them more responsive to the
aspirations and needs of their immediate families.
More About the Speakers
W. Bradford Wilcox
Author
With Commentary by:
Ron Haskins
Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, and Co-Director,
Welfare Reform & Beyond,
The Brookings Institution
Hosted By
Jennifer Marshall
Director, Domestic Policy Studies
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