It's a men's issue too.

In short, Chodorow focuses on the idea of "mothering" as a strictly female enterprise as a social construction in contrast to the common belief that it is more biological than societal. She begins by citing the American history that contributed to the development of the "nuclear family", being the advent of Industrialization and Capitalism in America as production outside the home became increasingly more valuable than work done within the home.  She concludes her argument by involving men in the issue by stating that eliminating the idea that "mothering" is reserved for women alone "would reduce men's needs to guard their masculinity and their control of social and cultural spheres which treat and define women as secondary and powerless." Chodorow addresses the community as a whole as she recognizes the issue of "mothering" as damaging to society for more than women alone.

The striking part of this argument for me is the date. Written in the 70s, Chodorow has had the insight it seems is just now arising in 2015. This past year, the United Nations identified girls' education as the key to decreasing third-world poverty. More and more each day, the female presence in global and national debates is increasing. It's gradual, but nonetheless progress is being made. But what seems to have been put at the wasteside is the male component of all this. Like Chodorow explicates, this issue is not only about women, it's about men too. I disagree with her statement that there is nothing inherently wrong about sexual division of labor for one's sex should not encourage or discourage them to a particular field and this idea is changing today as more women enter male-dominated fields. But what we don't see as much is men entering female-dominated fields, including nursing, teaching, etc. Just recently, men have started to stay at home rather than their wives. And still, this idea of staying at home while one's wife works is considered "emasculating." In my opinion, it is unproductive to encourage women to enter male-dominated fields without also encouraging men to enter female-dominated fields because doing so is furthering the idea of greater value on "male work" over women's work. This is why it frustrates me whenever I say I'm interested in gender studies and many say "Oh so women's issues?" Today, it's not just about your mother and your sister. It's about your father and your brother too.
Applying Chodorow's philosophy forces us to make this a non-exclusive discussion about the determination of one's individual role in the public in conjunction to one's role in private (i.e. home, family). Along with that is eliminating the varying valuation of "female work" vs. "male work" because this is where the problem arises. Chodorow would argue that each work should have comparable value, but I would go farther as to say that work itself should not be gender-specific as well. Thus, I believe using the word "mothering" as a synonym for caretaker is only further cementing the belief that caretaking is a female job; rather, "parenting" could replace it to make it more gender-neutral.