Adoption as Feminism

          The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines feminism as "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes."  As mothers or mothers-to-be, don't we want our daughters to have as many economic and political opportunities as our sons?  
          And yet the University of Wisconsin's National Survey of Families and Households finds that among dual-earning couples, women do about two-thirds of the housework.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women make roughly 75 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
          So many of my friends with children complain that their husbands simply do not do their fair share of the work.  I would imagine it all begins when the woman becomes pregnant.  Nature dictates that she alone must deal with all the physical changes and discomforts a pregnancy brings.  She alone must give birth to the baby.  And in many cases, she alone must nurse the baby.  From the very beginning, the woman takes on the lion's share of responsibility in bringing a child into the world.
          I felt this burden during my one round of IVF.  I had to put up with injections three times a day, the weight-gain, the mood swings, the nausea.  My husband could empathize.  And he surely had to deal with my mood swings.  But I had to carry a much bigger burden of bringing our child into the world than he did.
          But it is so different with our adoption journey.  We both have an equal number of forms to fill out, an equal number of personal questions to answer.  We both had to get fingerprinted last week.  We both have to go to the doctor and get him to sign a form saying we are healthy enough (physically and mentally) to adopt a child.  There is just as much stress on him as there is on me.  We both have to participate in the home study.  We will both fly to Ethiopia to meet our child, and we both will fly home with our new baby, caring for him or her on extremely long plane flights.
          I wonder if this gender equality in the adoption process will translate to a better sharing of chores as we raise our child.  It seems we're already starting out on the right foot.