Duke University
Medical Center
Intercom
VOL. 25, NO. 31
AUG. 4, 1978
DURHAM, N.C.
Duke psychologist says
Men need to share child-rearing responsibilities
By David Williamson
Despite some significant gains in
education and employment opportunities
in recent years, women in industrialized
nations will continue to be second class
citizens as long as they are considered
superior to men in raising children.
That's the opinion a Duke psychologist
expressed in a paper prepared for delivery
this week at the International Congress
of Applied Psychology meeting in
Munich, West Germany.
In a talk entitled
"Women—Eman
cipated But Not
Liberated," Dr.
Elaine K. Crovitz
said that for the
. most part, society
still operates on
two interlocking
assumptions that
are rarely chal
lenged. DR. CROVITZ
One is that the natural role of women is
to take care of children and home and the
other is that men cannot carry out these
tasks.
The result, she said is that although
women are sharing more and more of the
economic burden of maintaining their
households, they are not getting the relief
from competing tensions generated by
career and family that they might
reasonably expect.
"Mass access to the job market has
emancipated women but not liberated
them," she told representatives of some
95 countries. "Life has become more
trying, and the opportunity to acquire
hold down two jobs, one at work and one
at home," the self-styled feminist said.
Expert shortsightedness
All manner of “experts" have
reinforced the belief that children need
mothers in a way that they do not need
fathers and that an inborn nuturing
ability disposes women to be more
interested in and able to care for children
than are men, she said.
"Those who say that healthy emotional
development can not occur in the absence
"Those who say that healthy emotional development can not occur
in the absence of a mother-child relationship are just displaying their
own culture-bound shortsightedness."
education and jobs does not alone assure
women's equality.
"In a large number of families, working
women with children have a normal 80
hour or more work week, and in effect.
of a mother-child relationship are just
displaying their own culture-bound
shortsightedness."
Crovitz pointed out that in primative
societies where men shared fully in the
care of infants, anthropological evidence
has not demonstrated a high number of
abnormally developed youngsters.
In addition, recent studies of fathers
and the children they care for have shown
constructive and lasting benefits to both
generations. Other research has proven
that poverty, unwanted pregnancies, bad
marriages and abuse in childhood are far
more important factors than sex in
determining whether a person might be a
good parent.
Value not taught
The Duke psychologist said there is
currently no vocal group of men
clamoring to take on the responsibilities
of rearing children. The rewards of caring
for a child are real, but they are essentially
personal and hard to measure.
And since the experience does not lead
to power, wealth or high status, it is not
one that men are taught to value, she
added.
Commitment not fulfilled
Even in such widely different countries
as the U.S.S.R. and Israel, which have in
common a declared commitment to
IContinued on page 3)
Dermatology chief named
J. Lamar Callaway Professor
Dr. Gerald S. Lazarus, chief of the
division of dermatology, has been named
J. Lamar Callaway Professor of
Dermatology.
Lazarus, 39, is the first physician to
occupy the chair which was established
last year to honor Callavyay, chief of
dermatology from 1946-75 and a member
of the Duke faculty since 1937.
Callaway, who is James B. Duke
Highland Hospital
not to be sold
to Job Corps
Duke has terminated discussions with
the Federal Job Corps which had
expressed an interest in purchasing the
134-bed Highland Hospital in Asheville.
Dr. William G. Anlyan, vice president
for health affairs, met with the
administration and professional staff at
Highland last Friday to announce the
decision.
Anlyan said Duke is not entertaining
offers to purchase the property.
However, he said he believed that the best
interests of both Highland and Duke
might be better served in the future if
Highland's relationship to Duke were as
an independent, affihated hospital rather
than as a division of the medical center.
Highland began early in this century as
(Continued on page 4)
Professor of Dermatology, is continuing
his practice and research here.
Author or co-author of some 50
scientific papers, Lazarus is a nationally
recognized authority on mechanisms of
inflammation. He recently headed a team
of Duke researchers who succeeded in
identifying and isolating a protein
enzyme that they believe plays a major
role in the body's ability to deal with cell
damage. (See Intercom, 1/27/78.)
He and his colleagues think the
discovery may offer an entirely new
strategy for treating inflammatory
diseases such as psoriasis, in which too
many white blood cells accumulate in the
outer layer of the skin.
A native of New York City, Lazarus
earned a B.S. in chemistry at Colby
College in 1959 and his M.D. at George
Washington University School of
Medicine in 1963. After serving an
‘ internship and a year of medical residency
at the University of Michigan Medical
Center, he joined the National Institutes
of Health as a clinical associate.
From 1968-1970, he completed his
residency in dermatology at Harvard
Medical School and then spent two years
as a visiting scientist at Strangeways
Laboratories at the University of
Cambridge in England.
Before joining the Duke faculty in
1975, he was associate professor of
medicine at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York and head of
dermatology at Montefoire Hospital.
1
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r,- W\:/
THREE CALLAWAYS—Dr. ]. Lamar Callaway, his portrait on the wall behind him, talks with Dr.
Gerald S. Lazarus, who has just been named J. Lamar Callaway Professor of Dermatology.
Lazarus succeeded Callaway as chief of the Division of Dermatology in 1975. (Photo hy Jim Wallace)