For the most part, news that the world’s richest human being is now father to nine children with three different women – and that two of the women’s pregnancies occurred concurrently – has been met with an enthusiastic curiosity and jokes about how eccentric Elon Musk is.

But alongside the resignation of now-former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has seven children with three different partners, the news of Musk’s growing brood highlights a toxic double standard of how we still view women’s roles within family units.

Elon Musk, at the Time 2021 Person of the Year awards with his son X Æ A-12 in December. Credit: Getty

Would a woman with nine children to three men really be the CEO at one of the world’s most successful companies, as Musk is? Would voters consider a woman with seven children to three different men a viable candidate for a local MP position, let alone Prime Minister, as Johnson was?

A quick look around will tell you the answer to both questions is a resounding no.

“I can’t think of any women in senior positions who have comparable family setups to Musk or Johnson, says Associate Professor Lauren Rosewarne, from the University of Melbourne’s School of Social and Political Sciences. “It’s the slut/stud paradox where women are allowed to have sex appeal but not act on it, but men who have sex appeal and a high sex drive are viewed as studs and rewarded with power and greater social cache.”

“Women who have children with multiple men are generally framed as being promiscuous and irresponsible, she’s someone who makes mistakes or makes bad choices. Yet we cut men slack on the same issue and see Boris Johnson as a naughty boy or a scallywag and Elon Musk as an eccentric billionaire, which is almost a get-out-of-jail-free card. And there just isn’t the same equivalent for women.”

Physically, a woman would need to be pregnant for more than five years straight to meet Johnson’s number of children, and almost seven to match Musk, and that’s before factoring in any maternity leave or downtime between pregnancies. Aside from the toll such a feat would take on a person physically, that’s also a huge chunk of time taken from a woman’s career.

“The idea of having a woman in a senior position who somehow found time to have and raise seven children is an unlikely situation,” Rosewarne says, adding, “and that’s before you even get to the ethical questions like if she is a bad mother for being at work and not at home, or asking who is raising the children if she’s at work.”

Musk has explained his desire for a large family by saying, “doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.” But that ignores the many reasons behind declining birth rates and women choosing to have fewer children – like career stagnation, cost of living pressures, labour divisions and societal expectations, all of which were highlighted in Australia in recent census data. He’s also failed to acknowledge the ethical issues surrounding one of the women, Shivon Zilis, being his employee.

“More confirmation of a totally normal and healthy workplace for women,” former political staffer Lindsay Boylan tweeted. Mark Burry, the Wall Street investor brought to life in The Big Short, agreed, tweeting, “babies born in the US are at 1950 levels, but that doesn’t mean bosses should sleep with their subordinates to remedy the situation.”

Outgoing UK prime minister Boris Johnson has multiple children with a number of women.Credit:WPA via Getty

Musk’s admission that the mothers of his children play “a much bigger role than me” during the early years of his children’s life has also been called out by commentator Kendall Brown, who tweeted: “So while Elon Musk was busy vacationing with Natasha Basset [Musk’s current girlfriend] in St. Tropez last month, TWO different women were stuck at home with 6 mo. old infants he helped create. And Grimes [another of the mothers of Musk’s children] has previously said that Elon doesn’t help pay for childcare. This man is a parade of red flags.”

When you think about it, it’s little wonder we’ve never seen a woman juggling bath time and feeding schedules with a multi-billion dollar social media deal or running for office. How could she possibly hope to do both when one parent so actively opts out of any responsibility and is promoted for it?

“If a woman chooses to have a lot of children with different men she’s seen as someone who can’t be trusted to make good decisions,” Rosewarne says. “If she decides to have no children, she’s judged as being selfish. Unfortunately for women, we live in a society where it’s a constant battle of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

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