Caretaking is Feminine

Ross: Rachel and I hired a male nanny.
Joey: Really...? Guys do that...? That's... weird...

— Friends, "The One With The Male Nanny"

People in caretaking roles are almost Always Female.

Due to Real Life female biology, societies have long used the fact that many women can give birth as a justification to socialize most women, from infancy to adulthood, into caretaking roles and professions.

However, despite claims from religious and other traditional organizations, there is little scientific evidence suggesting women are naturally better caretakers than men outside of gendered socialization patterns.

In fiction, this societal standard means caretakers are usually portrayed as women with limited exceptions and they're often characterized by Females Are More Innocent and Beauty Equals Goodness. Like in real life, with the exception of nurse pay, the vast majority of people in caretaking roles are both underpaid and overworked.

A darker aspect of this trope is the corresponding Stereotype that men can't be trusted as caretakers and are often the source of child abuse or neglect because All Abusers Are Male. Some women even refuse to let men babysit their children as a result. When men appear in caretaking roles, they may be comically incompetent or untrustworthy and other characters are frequently taken aback at the unexpected gender role reversal. Alternatively, men who have such jobs are shown to be In Touch with His Feminine Side.

Common caretaking roles in fiction:

• Childcare: Playing on the stereotype of women as inherently maternal without actually giving them kids. This also positions them as an ideal love interest for a single or unfaithful father. If the main cast end up with an infant or child, expect its care and feeding to fall to the female characters.
  • Babysitting: Babysitters are usually sweet and young teenagers or college students. If they exist at all, babysitting men are creepy unless they're the hero. If she's a villainess see Babysitter from Hell. If the babysitter is a man, this is usually Played for Laughs with the Action-Hero Babysitter.
  • Nannying: Nannies are usually depicted as older and more mature (though not necessarily by much).
• Nursing: Nurses are almost always women in fiction and this commonly leads to the Florence Nightingale Effect where health care and romance combine. Male nurses are usually portrayed as a joke or nonexistent.
• Parenting: Motherhood Is Superior and fathers are Glorified Sperm Donors or completely incompetent. Female characters who don't know anything about motherhood or childcare are unusual enough to be pointed out. May also overlap with Struggling Single Mother, Glamorous Single Mother, or Single Mom Stripper.
• Social work: Usually, Social Services Does Not Exist, but if it does, you can safely bet that the ones doing the work are women. May overlap with Department of Child Disservices if the woman is a villainess.
• Teaching: Governesses were traditionally female. Schoolteachers used to be mostly women, especially in smaller areas (see Schoolmarm), unless they were a Creepy Gym Coach or a professor, but this is becoming more of a Discredited Trope in newer depictions.

Recent trends in fiction have sought to make men appear more capable at caretaking roles by portraying them as single fathers or in one of the aforementioned jobs. However, these are still relatively uncommon in comparison and rarely appear without In-Universe Lampshade Hanging, which is part of where this trope comes from in the first place.

Note that this isn't about caretakers who happen to be female (nor does a single male caretaker count as an aversion). There must be an in-universe implication that it's traditionally the duty of women, either from a Lampshade Hanging, portraying caretakers as paragons of femininity, assuming that feminine characters will make good carers, the caretakers seen being overwhelmingly female/feminine, or similar.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Vandread's Babysitting Episode doubles as a Birthday Episode for the Supporting Leader Meia, as she is saddled with babysitting Ezra's baby so she cannot sneak off before the celebration like she always does. Hijinx ensue and Meia ends up taking care of the baby for much longer than intended despite her initial chagrin and to everyone's surprise, she proves an incredibly capable babysitter. Among other things, this episode helps establish her (despite her outward stoicism) as the most traditionally feminine of Hibiki's three female co-pilots, who form a Three Faces of Eve trio with Meia embodying the Wife archetype.

Comic Books

• In The Avengers, Luke and Jessica are looking for a babysitter/nanny for their new baby. There's a page of them talking to a large number of heroes (including Deadpool and Demolition Man, for some reason) before settling on Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl is, of course, pretty and kind and sweet and feminine. Unless she's pissed off. Then she's capable of taking down practically anyone, including Doctor Doom. Which is probably why they picked her.

Fan Works

• With This Ring: A flashback reveals that the Zatara Crime Family on Earth -14 believes this, with Don Giovanni Zatara subverting this belief when he decided to raise his daughter by himself after the death of his wife rather than remarry as his own father suggested.

Films—Animation

• Monster House, as Elizabeth (aka Zee) invokes this as D.J.'s babysitter. In the movie, she arrives at D.J.'s house with her hair done up and wearing a nice sweater while saying how much of a good time she and D.J. are going to have. As soon as D.J. says his parents are not there, her sweater comes off to reveal a tattered rock n roll band t-shirt and she undoes her hair. She then proceeds to break a potted plant before telling D.J. that his parents are going to believe her over him.

Films—Live-Action

• Adventures in Babysitting: Chris Parker finds herself with nothing to do after her boyfriend breaks off their scheduled date, so she agrees to spend the night babysitting the Andersons' children. Things go awry after she decides to leave the house and take the kids with her.
• Annabelle Comes Home: Judy Warren takes the mantle of main protagonist in this prequel movie, and because of her young age, when her parents leave, they have the beautiful blonde-haired Mary Ellen babysit her for the night. Mary-Ellen isn't supposed to have anyone over, but her friend Daniela is considered okay, while her crush Bob is outright not allowed at all. He even says that there aren't supposed to be any boys over at the end when Judy's parents come home after he stayed up all night to keep the girls safe after they contained the demonic presence. Daniela does make a comment that that's the least of their concerns considering the demonic presence she accidentally unleashed.
• Daddy Day Care: When Charlie and Phil are first trying to get kids for their daycare, no mothers are willing to give them a chance, suspecting they might be pedophiles or incompetent. Finally one mother signs her child up, stating that men can look after kids too.
• Babysitters are repeatedly seen throughout the Halloween franchise, starting from the very first movie. Laurie Strode and Annie Brackett in the first movie and its remake, Rachel in the fourth movie (though she only babysits her foster sister in place of another girl who was supposed to), and Vicki in the 2018 film. It isn't until Halloween Ends, 44 years In-Universe (or at least in this continuity) and out that we finally get the first male babysitter in the franchise in Corey Cunningham, who himself is not that bad a babysitter, save that his charge calls him a bad babysitter and a horrible event happens that night, though it wasn't Corey's fault by any means.
• Magnolia: Phil is Earl Partridge's registered nurse and full-time caretaker. While Phil is male, he's also the most sensitive character in the film and is instrumental in trying to fix the relationship between Earl and his son before Earl dies. His demeanor and mannerisms are quite androgynous (bordering on effeminate).
• The final segment of The Mortuary Collection consists of Logan's babysitter Sam fighting off a murderous psychopathic home invader intent on killing Logan. The film exploits this trope to preserve the reveal that the seemingly kind blond angelic-looking girl we've been led to believe was Sam was really the invader, and the man she'd been fighting was actually Sam. Not long after it's revealed that the man is Logan's babysitter, a newsreel reveals the monster that the fake Sam, Charlotte Gibbins, really is.
• Mary Poppins: A line of women all in black waits outside of the Bankses' home when they're looking for a new nanny for Jane and Michael (which makes it particularly amusing when Mary Poppins literally blows them all away).
• Mrs. Doubtfire: Invoked. When recently-divorced Miranda Hillard interviews for a nanny to watch her three children while she's at work, there's not a single male in the group of prospects... as far as she knows. Subverted in that she ends up hiring their father, who fools her by disguising himself as a matronly Scottish Woman in order to spend time with his kids.
• My Babysitter's a Vampire: In the Pilot Movie, Ethan's parents hire a girl who is the same age as he is to be his (and his little sister's) babysitter since he is considered too irresponsible to be left alone, much to Ethan's humiliation. When Erica ditches the babysitting gig to attend a party, Ethan's crush Sarah takes her friend's place (in part to get away from her jerky vampire ex-boyfriend), and Ethan's parents barely question it, despite how disheveled she looks.
• Nanny McPhee: The Brown children have scared away 17 nannies, all women (based on Simon's board), before Nanny McPhee comes along.
• A plot point in the remake of When a Stranger Calls, where the titular "Stranger" is a Serial Killer who likes targeting babysitters. Stacey is the introductory kill and the only one we see, but it's clear that he's likely preyed on other babysitters that we just didn't get to see. Jill is his next victim, and the movie follows her trying to survive against him and protect the children.
• You've Got Mail: Joe Fox grew up with a string of nannies, all implied to be female. His father married a couple of them before divorcing them. His stepmother also brings Nanny Maureen along to assist Joe in case he "can't handle" watching his 4-year-old brother and 8-year-old aunt for the day, but Joe insists she take the day off, subverting the trope — in fact, it's Joe watching the kids that initially attracts Kathleen to him offline.

Literature

• The titular group of The Baby-Sitters Club is mainly comprised of teen/preteen girls. Mary-Anne's boyfriend Logan is an 'associate member' (i.e. he'll sub in if really needed) but can't fully join because the club would conflict with his sports. In one of his A Day in the Limelight focal books, Logan Bruno, Boy Baby-sitter, it's mentioned that the guys at school make fun of him for being a babysitter.

Live-Action TV

• The Baby-Sitters Club (2020): All of the babysitters are, of course, girls. In "The Truth About Stacey", they're challenged by the Babysitters' Agency, which has a token boy. However, the Agency is shown to be incompetent and quickly goes out of business.
• CSI: Miami: In "CSI: My Nanny", the parents of a middle-school boy and a five-year-old girl have two live-in nannies for their children, both women. They originally had three, the other being a man, but they fired him after their son told the man that he loved him. They were afraid the guy was grooming the boy to try and entice him into a physical relationship. Turns out the kid was just grateful to have someone to hang with and do "guy stuff" together, and thought of the man as a big brother.
• In the Friends episode "The One With The Male Nanny" Ross is uncomfortable having a male nanny. Joey is also surprised upon learning this. Monica and Rachel have fun asking them for a valid reason why a man can't be a nanny, and neither have a good answer.
• The Other Two: Brooke expresses reservations with her on-off boyfriend Lance's career change to nursing, fearing that it makes him look gay.
• Subverted in Stranger Things with Steve Harrington who, after a Jerkass Realization and losing his popularity ends up the unofficial babysitter to The Party and Big Brother Mentor to Dustin in particular, protecting them from the weirdness of Hawkins.
  Steve: I may be a pretty shitty boyfriend, but turns out I'm a pretty damn good babysitter.
• In The Umbrella Academy (2019), a young Viktor regularly murdered women hired to be the children's nanny as a young boy. Finally, the kids' adoptive father built a robotic nanny named Grace whose look was based on his Motherly Scientist ex-girlfriend, except she's styled to resemble a midcentury Housewife. In the present, the Hargreeveses still consider her their mother.
• Veronica Mars: Meg Manning was the babysitter for the Neptune parents. After her coma and eventual death, Veronica took over for an episode, despite her personal disinterest in the kids and dislike of the job.
• The Walking Dead: Until around Season 4 of the show, women are repeatedly shown being the more caretaking of the genders. Lori and Carol in the early seasons were the caretakers to the children. After Judith's birth, Beth becomes her primary caretaker, and Carol is in charge of educating the children. Afterwards, this is less the case, with men taking more active caretaking roles.

Theater

• Peter Pan: Exaggerated with 12-year-old Wendy becoming the "mother" to the Lost Boys specifically because she's the only girl, and the Darling children's nursemaid being a dog named Nana. Because apparently in turn-of-the-century England, a female dog was considered a better caretaker than a human man.
• The Sound of Music: The Von Trapp children had scared away 11 governesses (defined as an unmarried woman who is a live-in babysitter and teacher), with Maria being the 12th prior to falling in love with their father.

Video Games

• Metroid: Other M emphasizes the femininity of the protagonist Samus Aran and the villain Mother Brain by placing them in a plot centering around motherhood, in contrast to prior games where their gender was incidental. For Mother Brain, the Galactic Federation builds an android named MB based on Mother Brain's design, which they intend to have develop a maternal relationship with Metroid bioweapons so that the GF can use her to control them. As for Samus, she appears in more scenes out of armor, recounts sexism in the GF military, and characterizes her feelings towards the fallen Baby Metroid as explicitly maternal, as opposed to previous games where she was rarely seen unarmored and her feelings towards the Baby Metroid were implied to be affectionate but not familial.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Waterbending can be used for both Supernatural Martial Arts and Healing Hands. However, in the Northern Water Tribe, only men are trained as fighters while women are relegated to healing duties.
• Care Bears (1980s): In the episode "The Turnabout", Champ Bear attempts to invoke this trope, asking Cheer Bear and Treat Heart to babysit Hugs and Tugs while he and Bright Heart go fix the lighthouse to repel No Heart's fog, claiming that the former job is far easier for the girls than the latter. Cheer however does not take it well and instead makes both pairs switch jobs to prove which of them is actually harder, resulting in the boys babysitting while the girls go fix the lighthouse. In the end, both jobs turn out to be more difficult than expected with Champ realizing that boys and girls can do them equally as well, although Cheer offhandedly admits that she would rather stick with jobs like babysitting than do something like fixing the lighthouse again.
• Subverted in the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Adventures in Squirrelsitting". The Rangers babysit a teenage and toddler squirrel duo for the day, and while Token Girl Gadget is the one who suggests that they do as a way to make up for accidentally wrecking their mother's room, she has almost no moments of caring for them. Instead, it's the guys who primarily care for the squirrels.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Apparently, the evil babysitter Vicky is the sole babysitter in Dimmsdale.
• Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids: In "The New Nanny", Twistrum and Candy were getting a new nanny while their old one, Mrs. Mac, was fired because of a lie they told their parents. They each get a nanny every day which were female. The kids started mistreating their new nannies until they get an alligator nanny.
• Kim Possible : Before she got into the saving the world biz, Kim was a babysitter. In fact, it was her website, seeking new sitting jobs, which got her set on her globe-trotting heroic adventures, as a billionaire trapped by his own security system accidentally called her in instead of Team Possible due to a typo.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: While the show is already an Improbably Female Cast, every "foal sitter" depicted has been female:
  • In "Baby Cakes", Mr. and Mrs. Cake notably only ask the members of the Mane 6 to foalsit their rambunctious twins at the last minute, before agreeing to let Pinkie Pie do it. While Pinkie herself has a very hard time adjusting to the responsibility (especially since the twins start developing their pegasus and unicorn powers at just the wrong moment), she eventually figures it out and agrees to be their regular sitter.
  • Princess Cadance was Twilight Sparkle's sitter when she was younger, and Twilight eventually acts as sitter for Cadance's child (and Twilight's niece) Flurry Heart in "A Flurry of Emotions".
• Tom and Jerry: In "Tot Watchers", Tom's owner leaves her baby under the care of Jenny, a blonde teenager that seems nice and well-behaved. But, as soon as she finds herself alone with the baby, the first thing she does is jump at the telephone, while the child slips from his stroller to wander around. Tom and Jerry — two male animals — stop picking on one another to keep the baby from getting in danger for the rest of the episode, thus they are much more responsible and competent than Jennie in spite of their antics. She eventually realizes that the baby is not with her and calls the police just to lay the blame on Tom and Jerry, when they return with the baby safe and sound.

Real Life

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought against this idea in the case of Moritz v. Commissioner, in which Charles Moritz claimed a tax deduction as a caregiver for his ailing mother, subverting the trope. He was denied on the basis of being male — the deduction was originally created with women in mind, but an appeal to the Tenth Circuit court overturned this decision, allowing the deduction to be extended to never-married men who were caregivers. This was depicted in the biopic On the Basis of Sex.

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