Many recent studies analyzing the challenges facing academic mothers seem to blame their stalled careers on the failure of academic fathers to be equal partners.

I’ve seen that easy explanation offered again and again in studies and articles: Men are slacking off at parenting, leaving women overburdened by family obligations and struggling to meet their career demands in academe.

In some families, the incompetent or lax father, or one still attached to 1950s gender roles, may indeed be part of the problem.