For a long time, women’s equality has been treated as a “women’s issue,” of interest and importance, naturally, only to women. But from the HeforShe movement—which encourages men and boys to be agents of change in combating inequality—to the feminist musings of celebrities like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, men have become an increasingly vocal part of the conversation. The cynical explanation is that men have realized that they stand to benefit from gender equality: As a recent report by McKinsey & Co showed, advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth. But there are also more personal, less tangible benefits: Just as feminism frees women from the constraints of traditional femininity, it can also free men from the constraints of traditional masculinity. It can make space for men to embrace identities, pursuits, and activities formerly relegated to the other sex. If women aren’t restricted to being mothers and homemakers, then men don’t have to be restricted to being detached, ladder-climbing breadwinners either.

In her recent book, Unfinished Business, Anne-Marie Slaughter calls this the “men’s movement,” and it’s crucial, in her view, to completing the work begun by the women’s movement. Only when men become more involved as caregivers, Slaughter argues, will women stand a chance of full empowerment in the workplace, and American society more broadly. It’s a powerful vision—but how do we make it happen? I talked to Slaughter about the challenges in building a world where men and women are full partners in caregiving.

Elizabeth Winkler: You write that if men are going to see caregiving as a valuable, respectable pursuit, we need to value caregiving more, to think about it not just as the feeding, dressing, and driving of children but as an investment in the next generation. How do we, as a society, re-program the way we think about care? How are people to start valuing an activity that we associate with mostly unpaid or low-paid labor?

Anne-Marie Slaughter: The place to start is to realize what caring for children means for our society as a whole. It is essential for our economic competitiveness, our national security, our equality, and our wellbeing. We know that because we now understand scientifically that for the first five years of a child’s life, and again in early teenage-hood, the brain is growing and developing—not just adding knowledge but actual intellectual and emotional capacity. We know what kind of stimulation matters; we know what happens to children who are well cared for in developmentally appropriate ways versus those who are not. It directly affects their actual capabilities for the rest of their lives. Political, military, economic and civic leaders must take the lead in publicizing the science and the policy implications of the science.

The next phase is to make clear how much of a difference professional care can make to improve the quality of life and the continuing contribution that elders can make—something that inevitably affects us all. As I write in Unfinished Business, quoting development psychologist Megan Gunn, we pay the people who care for our children the same as we pay the people who park our cars, mix our drinks, and walk our dogs. Is that really how much we value the next generation of human capital in this country?