This post by Jessica at Feministing, responding to this risible Neil Lyndon piece in the Daily Mail has revived many of the familiar arguments about feminism, the men’s rights movement, and gender essentialism. It’s all part of a response to the latest flurry of op-ed pieces (far too numerous to which to link) suggesting that feminism has proved a failure, largely because so many women today (especially middle-class American and European women, presumably those most likely to have benefitted from the movement) report being exhausted, overworked, anxious and, well, unhappy.
If you follow the feminist blogosphere, this topic has been debated over and over again in one form or another since the earliest BBS discussions of the mid-1990s. I’m not interested in rehashing the arguments, though the latest round of anti-feminist bromides seem unusually poorly constructed. Most are guilty of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: if women are anxious or frustrated or unhappy after the coming of the first three waves of feminism, then they are anxious and unhappy because of the first three waves of feminism. One might as well make the same argument about the arrival of the cell phone, electrolysis, or the designated hitter rule. Repeat after me, class: correlation is not causation.
What made me want to write today was the comment thread below the Feministing piece, a thread in which a number of classic MRA (men’s rights activist) arguments were raised. The basic thesis: feminism has created a world hostile to men (at least in the industrialized West). Feminists have co-opted judicial, political, and educational institutions in order to advance what the MRAs call a “victim ideology”. Men and boys are alternately harangued and ignored, viewed by the feminist elite as either dim-witted oafs or dangerously calculating and predatory. Men are dying earlier and committing suicide more frequently because of their alienation from these woman-centered institutions, say the MRAs; the legions of young men hooked on pot or porn or Playstation (or all three) are the inevitable result of their cultural and social emasculation at the hands of a shrill and craven matriarchy. Or so say the MRAs.
So let me say this in defense of feminism, not only from the perspective of someone who makes his living in no small part by teaching it, but from the perspective of a new father: my relationship with my infant daughter is, in a very real way, made possible by the critical work feminists did to reframe traditional gender roles. It is thanks to the gains of the feminist movement that I was encouraged and expected to go through every aspect of the pregnancy and birthing process with my wife. It is thanks to the cultural shift initiatied by feminists and male allies that I was able to take the time away from work to be there for my wife (a right alas not yet universal). It is thanks to the feminist movement that a generation of committed and dedicated fathers has emerged, fathers who actively practice co-parenting with the mothers of their children. Though men neither get pregnant nor breastfeed, these biological inadequacies are no impediment to developing the capacity to nurture, something I am living out as best I can every day.
It is thanks to feminism that the men’s restroom in the JFK Delta Crown Room has a baby changing table, and it is thanks to feminism that the business travelers who came in yesterday as I was diapering Heloise didn’t bat an eyelash at the sight.
Thanks to feminism, I am able to refuse social engagements or other opportunities because I need to spend time with my wife and daughter. It is feminism, as far as I can see, that liberated men like me to be able to prioritize children over career, at least for periods in my life. To the extent that around the globe, very few fathers have that privilege is not because feminism succeeded too well — it is because we still have many battles to fight, and many as of yet unconquered citadels of anti-egalitarian values.
Indeed, as a father I am more likely to run into examples of continued male privilege than into misandry. When I walk around with my daughter on my shoulder, I hear sotto voce whispers exclaiming things like “I love seeing Dads with their babies” or “Aw, aren’t they cute together.” When I’m with my daughter in public, caring for her and cuddling her, I get praised for being an active co-parent; when my wife has Heloise, the only praise that comes is directed to my daughter alone. It is assumed that the mother of a child will care for it; adult women are not celebrated for their willingness to change the diapers of their offspring. In some as of yet unenlightened circles, publicly nurturing fathers are still — still! — rare enough to be worthy of comment.
I recognize that some women do feel as if feminism has created many unintended burdens; I recognize that some women do perceive within certain feminist circles an occasional whiff of hostility towards motherhood as an equally valuable career choice compared, say, to law or medicine or the academy. There is no question, however, that women’s access to traditionally male bastions has been somewhat more successful, especially for the middle classes, than men’s willingness to take on domestic duties. To the extent that women are exhausted from the double shifts of career plus house work, this is due in no small part to the inexhaustible demands of contemporary capitalism — and the nearly as inexorable resistance of many men to shouldering their share of domestic duties. It is not, in other words, that too many women have embraced feminism — it is that too few men have.
As I’ve said before, I didn’t change a diaper until 2009. My learning curve is steep, and my caffeine consumption (to cope with sleep deprivation) is as well. I fit in time to write and teach and work out around what I know are my even more important commitments to my wife and child. It’s exhausting, more so than any trail ultramarathon I’ve done. I won’t pretend to do it all perfectly, but I will say that I don’t do it begrudgingly. And that I can do it, and at least in my immediate circle am expected to do it, is thanks to feminism. Feminism has given me a relationship with my wife and daughter that American men — particularly of my background — simply would not have had two or three generations ago. And not a day goes by that I’m not grateful.
Postscript: And here’s the male privilege again. if I were a heterosexual woman who taught Gender Studies, and I wrote the sentence in the preceding paragraph I fit in time to write and teach and work out around what I know are my even more important commitments to my husband and child,I’m not at all sure the reaction would be unequivocally positive. We’ve put many women in an impossible position around motherhood; hence the raging Mommy wars. I get to be a father, a husband, and a full-time employed person without contradiction, without suggestion that I am neglecting one responsibility by focusing on the other. That’s raw male privilege, and I understand it better as a Dad than I did as a childless man.
You bring up many good points. As a woman I am definitely guilty of “awwing” over dads in public. Why? Like you said, it’s still rare enough to be worthy of comment. That’s sad. Hopefully soon, it won’t be.
I recently discovered your blog and am quite enjoying it so far. Thanks for giving giving me some insight on what’s it like to be an active father this day and age.
I was with my family last week while some relatives (the only relatives) from out of town were in visiting. I conspired with my out-of-town cousin of similar age to throw a party so that all the family could come together at the same time to eat and visit. Whenever an event like this happens, we try to squeeze everyone into a picture. After the picture was taken, the cousin and I were looking at it and noticed that there were only two men in the picture–one the only male cousin, the other our youngest cousin’s husband of two months. Thinking about it, the husbands are very rarely in these pictures or even at the gatherings. Cousin says, “husbands never seem to be in the pictures, do they?” Our older cousin sitting next to us, with a six year old daughter and recently divorced, say “ain’t that the truth.”
In my family, at least, men never seemed to become part of the family or take part in much of the parenting, which really goes hand in hand. Individual families mostly fell into the categories of either revolving husband/father, where a female was married several times and their husband didn’t spend much time as part of the family, or husbands that were aloof to the every day realities of domestic life, which included family gatherings or school functions. As for the latter category, their absences (or quick appearance for food) were usually explained by work obligations, though the women always worked as much as the men did. The domestic atmosphere of those I grew up with, at least other working class families, seemed similar.
I am continually shocked at the existence of a discourse around men benefiting from feminism when I’m used to seeing little social impact of feminism in relationship dynamics, period. When I bring up this possibility, of men having an equal emotional share, I get more blank incomprehension than argument. It is like there isn’t even a possibility of there being an alternative, or that it isn’t enough of a priority to merit consideration to discover an alternative. There is more a sense of desperation for someone who will take at least a financial share in supporting a household, especially for those with children already. Aloof is okay.
Since an awareness of privilege is being discussed, I thought I would bring up my awareness of the class gap. Your argument isn’t deficient. In fact, it is perfectly relevant to your situation. It is just a problem I experience differently. I do this translation a lot with feminist blogs.
At least among the people I know, if the gender roles were eased up and made a little more fluid, there would be more room for communication and relationship building within the marriages that have made up my family that divorce/aloofness wouldn’t be so overwhelmingly the rule. I’d say that the women in your situation (the “oo”ers) don’t even realize they are contributing to the cultural acceptance of an attitude that allow their husbands to avoid diaper duty and keeps them under valued. Oh, how so many of us are participants in our own oppression…
It is thanks to feminism that the men’s restroom in the JFK Delta Crown Room has a baby changing table, and it is thanks to feminism that the business travelers who came in yesterday as I was diapering Heloise didn’t bat an eyelash at the sight.
It is thanks to your privilege and apparent access to wealth that you and your baby are in the Delta Crown Room. Are you clueless, Hugo, about the ways in which these classist references undercut some of your otherwise excellent points?
And what about traditional women who derive a sense of purpose from maintaining “hearth and home”? What about women who like traditional gender roles, and don’t want husbands changing diapers? What about women who want traditional men? Where are they in your feminist discourse?
While I’m at it, how are working class men supposed to embrace feminism when they’ve got relatively little education but lots of physical skills they use to make money? Is the farm worker who puts in 12 hour days of backbreaking physical work supposed to come home and cook for his wife and diaper his baby too?
THERE ARE WAYS FOR FATHERS TO LOVE THEIR CHILDREN THAT ARE UNIQUELY MANLY, THAT DON’T INVOLVE MEN AND WOMEN HAVING NO COMPLIMENTARY SENSE OF DIFFERENCE.
my relationship with my infant daughter is, in a very real way, made possible by the critical work feminists did to reframe traditional gender roles.
Yes, and so is mine, and among those feminists I count my mother and grandmother. Well said, Hugo.
Awesome post, Hugo.
Carlos, do you see a way for working-class dads to share equally in the emotional work of parenting, even if they have to divvy up the chores in the way you describe?
I also think we need to be careful about attributing this arrangement to an innate difference between the sexes when it may be even more an artifact of our economic system. Essentializing these divisions of labor blinds us to the possibility that we could work towards a society where more men and women have the egalitarian choices that Hugo’s family (and mine) have.
I sure have become radical since reading this blog :)
This is something I forget: the concept of one person working and one person staying home. I’ve been in this kind of conversation several times recently. Most of the women in my extended family seem to aspire to a theoretical/idealized state of staying home with house and family, but it is not a reality that existed for my grandmother’s generation–and the generation before that never had indoor plumbing or electricity, a different time. One of my aunts married the school genius, no motivation of love or attraction by personal admission, put him through college waitressing and has stayed home the rest of her life. The refrain story is how everyone else can’t understand when she complains that he stopped helping her with the household after they had kids/quit working.
Now, obviously it is problematic that it is overwhelmingly the woman that is expected to be a full-time homemaker in middle class homes, if someone is primarily a homemaker. Say, though, if it were a perfect world and people could choose based on their personal desires and strengths, what would being a full time homemaker, male or female, entail?
Now I return to relevance with the OP. Housework, the domestic functions, should be separate from those activities that involve children. Is changing diapers comparable to doing dishes? I think those two things are being lumped into the same category, which is a problem. The traditional notion of the division of family spheres treats the raising of children as some static, monotonous function separate from the non-domestic responsibilities of a breadwinner. Those chores like bath time, school functions, bed time, feeding and even diaper changing are part of emotional bonding. So, even if one person has their primary work responsibilities in the home, a child deserves the emotional energies of both parents beyond the division of labor.
I think the inclusion of child rearing in the same category as making meals or vacuuming is problematic because it seems like children only need a certain quantity of parenting from an indiscriminate source as opposed to quality/quantity from both adults in their life. Carpets don’t care if it is one parent or another, but children know who is giving them the lion’s share of attention.
Now, some people can’t achieve much of this from either source, with a reliance on child care or grandparents for much of primary care, but I would say that those that have to rely on it consider it less than ideal. I think the lack of emotional equity in child rearing that exists practically in society has less to do with inherent gender traits than the complicity of the system with toxic, patriarchal masculinity.
Carlos, maybe you’re the clueless one. In fact, it’s because of feminism that there are changing tables in the men’s public restrooms in nearly every large airport in America, just as there are in shopping malls and elsewhere.
Maybe the point isn’t the Hugo has access to the Delta Crown Lounge, but that you feel guilty because diaper changing isn’t something you feel is your job as a man, and it makes you uncomfortable to have another man write that he does it? The one with class issues is you, not Hugo. You’re waving your blue collar male privilege around like a banner. Hugo’s post wasn’t class-based, yours was.
Mothers who do hard physical labor every day (many women, all around the world and in the States too) don’t get to not change diapers. The diapers don’t change themselves.
In a lot of ways, if myself or my husband were to stop working outside the home, it would make sense for it to be him. He would get a lot more done than I would, and enjoys a well-run home more than me (there are more things that I just don’t think are all that important to get done, and therefore don’t do). And I think that the difficulty for us in doing that is more in my inability to imagine myself as sole breadwinner than in his inability to imagine himself as home-maker. The idea of working long hours and missing out on the day to day of child care moments just seems depressing to me. But working out an intermediate option - where we both get to do both and are both responsible for both outside work and home-work is logistically difficult.
First, it is extremely likely that this farmworker’s wife is also working grueling hours (in all likelihood being paid to cook, clean or care for the children of someone else). But more significantly, feminism only really makes sense as a general critique of exploitative power structures. The implication being that anybody being compelled to break their backs in 12-hour shifts is an affront to feminist principles, gender roles entirely aside.
(This also explains why some people who don’t really have much interest in preserving traditional social norms per se still find themselves opposing feminist reforms, while right-wing alternative ideologies like “i-feminism” are doomed to incoherence: the “radical notion that women are people” has real and unavoidable implications for capitalism.)
“Is the farm worker who puts in 12 hour days of backbreaking physical work supposed to come home and cook for his wife and diaper his baby too?”
My mother worked a physically demanding job throughout my entire childhood. She then came home and took care of a husband, a house, and two children.
She still works a physically demanding job and then goes home and takes care of her home (my father is dead) - that includes tending to all interior and exterior work around the house, PLUS she often helps tend to my two children.
And while I’m not currently performing a physically demanding job, I have in the past. I woke up at 5:00 in the morning, got my children ready for school, went to work, worked all day, arrived home at 6:30 PM, and then set about tending to my house and children.
Enough said.
“THERE ARE WAYS FOR FATHERS TO LOVE THEIR CHILDREN THAT ARE UNIQUELY MANLY,”
There are no ways of loving that are “uniguely manly” anymore than their is any way of loving that is “uniquely womanly”. Women can perform all the labors and express all the emotions that a man can. That this even still needs to be pointed out to certain men is somewhat mind boggling.
One should always be careful to avoid projecting one’s experiences on entire groups. There were millions of men who changed diapers, fixed bottles and cared for children long before feminism existed and there a millions more who do all those things without any help or support from feminists.
My former foster father is the primary caregiver. The reason he is so proactive is not because of feminism, but because he was raised by a single father. However, as the primary caregiver he faces far more misandry than male privilege. Teachers have called his wife when there are problems in school instead of him. Doctors presume that because he is a father he is too clueless or too disinterested to care, and this is when he brings the children in. The same thing happens with social workers who will sometimes not even talk directly to him. I have witnessed people, overwhelmingly women, compliment him only to turn to his wife and say something akin to “How’d you train him to do that?” And that is about as polite as it gets from feminists. Several years ago a feminist he worked with (when he still worked in an office) implied he was a pedophile — to his face — because he, rather than his wife, takes care of the children.
That is not to say that some fathers have not been helped by feminism. It is that the effect of no different than religion or any other ideology. It is one’s personal reflection of the impact of that ideology on one’s life, not that the ideology has improved things for everyone. If feminism personally helped you, that is good. However, there are plenty of fathers who can say the exact opposite.
I agree with all of your post. Thank you for this, and I do want to say that like Leah, I too am guilty of cooing over men with babies in public.
I do have one bone to pick: the line about not being able to breastfeed as “biological inadequacy.” I worry about the reverse implication: am I biologically inadequate because I don’t have a penis? I think you can honor physiological complementarity without attaching any particular role to those complementarities.
I’m glad, for example, that my boyfriend has a penis and I have a vagina (and a clitoris!). That complementarity is very satisfactory. No need to invoke inadequacy!
As a preganat feminist, I’m struggling with the same issue… feeling as though (because of my biology) I have more of a responsibility for caring for this child once it’s born than my husband does; and I resent it. And on the flip side, I believe my husband buys into this social construct because of the way he was raised: women have and take care of babies, and men work and play.
Please consider writing more on this topic.
Shorter Carlos: STFU and get back in the kitchen, castrating bitches.
It’s amazing how many people are so fixated on their vive-le-difference fetish that they cannot see traditional roles as simply one personal choice among many, but shrilly insist that these are the best roles, ones which should be strictly enforced by legal and social bonds, and any deviation from which is unnatural.
Funny - I guess because of the couples I have known, when I try to imagine what is a “uniquely manly” kind of childcare, I picture my friend’s husband standing/swaying/dancing in the living room with music playing and a baby against his shoulder for a couple of hours in a row - a feat requiring endurance, focus, and patience. But I think “baby soothing” is considered more of a womanly thing. More’s the pity.
My coworkers at my old job were more traditionally inclined. One of the guys had a baby, who he brought to work one day. As soon as the baby started crying, some female coworkers came to the rescue. What a weird thought - handing your own baby off to strangers for soothing.
I definitely think my baby-dancing friend had the better end of the fatherhood deal there.
One thing that drives me crazy (and I’m sure you’d never do this, Hugo) is when men refer to taking care of their own kids as “babysitting,” seeming to imply that it’s not really their job. A psychologist(!) I used to work for did this until I called him on it.
Word, Dev. When kid #1 was a newborn, the only thing that soothed her was 1) Daddy singing to her or 2) Daddy laying her across his arm and rocking her. I couldn’t physically do #2 because my arms aren’t long enough and I don’t have the upper-body strength. Guess that isn’t “manly” enough for the likes of Carlos. Pity.
when my wife has Heloise, the only praise that comes is directed to my daughter alone.
Hugo, do you believe that this has to do with white privilege as well as male privilege?
Carlos:
‘While I’m at it, how are working class men supposed to embrace feminism when they’ve got relatively little education but lots of physical skills they use to make money? Is the farm worker who puts in 12 hour days of backbreaking physical work supposed to come home and cook for his wife and diaper his baby too?’
It seems a bit odd that someone who expresses such indepth knowledge of working class life seems so unaware that working class families invariably need two breadwinners:
So, Carlos do you expect a working class mother to carryout back breaking double shifts in a factory or as a waitress and then come home and cook for her husband and diaper her baby?? Because that’s what most working class mothers in a relationship have to do. Feminism is just looking for a some equality in these situations. To suggest that equal parenting is a middle class, educated priveledge and not a desperate working class need betrays an ignorance of at least 50% (that’s the female half) of working class life. Single breadwinner families are a luxury only few can afford.
Heh Myth…
As you might remember, the BH was perfunctory but cooperative in the scut work of our cherubs. But there is no question he viewed his role as auxiliary…particularly when his career took off. (Myth, you may also remember the story of the BH handling all three at the Peds clinic?) Hilarious, in hindsight. Not so much in the moment.
His interest developed as our boys did, and the BH was and is an active, engaged and accomplished Dad.
I hate thinking I have to defend a husband and father who was simply not that enamored of the infant/early toddler years. For cryin’ out loud, the proof is in the pudding…three domestically progressive sons who might be doing things somewhat differently than Dad, but who carry his ethic of hard work (and harder play), his sense of private and community responsibility, and most of all, his respect for their women, into this changed world.
Oh and Toy Soldier, yeah, my grandad was the main care taker and my dad (his son) is more stereoptypically ‘maternal’ than my mother. It isn’t down to feminism, it’s a family trait. But feminism has made my dad feel much more comfortable about who he is - he feels a bit less pressured into being, what Carlos would descirbe as ‘manly’. I also feel less pressured to be what Carlos might describe as ‘womanly’ because of feminism.
Also: all sorts of people get accused of being pedophiles these days - we’re in the midst of a bit of ill - informed hysteria about that. It happened to my aunt recently because she took a photograph of some children who were damaging her garden fence. The police were invoked by the non feminist parents of the children. She has been severely distressed by the situation. These kinds of accusations are not made by just one type of person, or about just one type of person.
Hugo,
what Laura said - I’m pretty sure you were thinking speechmarks here, so why not actually use them…
“inadequacies”
As for the rest - I’m thinking both you and the MRAs you’re talking about are overcrediting feminism with changes in the productive sphere that gave rise to a different gender-based division of labour. So that’s, in my opinion, a post hoc ergo propter hoc in your argument.
The one thing I’m wondering about is - why is everyone complaining about men who don’t embrace feminism when women are still constantly debating whether what feminism actually is and whether there’s room for men, or just for “allies”. In the end, much of this discussion doesn’t feel like a win-win situation to men - and I suppose that’s mostly because they’re scared and their fears aren’t taken seriously by the exact same people who call on them to open up. A couple of weeks ago, someone on feministing wrote about a report in which some feminist organization made the same point: Engaging more men. But in the entire thing there was nothing * at * all to help men get over their fears of redundancy and sexual frustration. No wonder many men feel this is a battle of the sexes waged by feminists when they’re constantly asked to change but hardly anyone one of those who ask them to do this (and often behave individually irrationally for abstract assumed social fairness reasons) do actually care about them. Why should they embrace what they are told in this respect? Why is that even someone morally expected? That’s something I don’t understand…
Toysoldier: why entirely blame the negative reactions your foster-father recieved on women? Yes, they were incredibly rude. On the other hand, that kind of ingrained response to men did not come out of thin air–societal narratives of how useless men are at feminine/nurturing roles are backed up by legions of men who are profoundly disinterested or scornful of active involvement in their children’s lives. If more men were like him, he wouldn’t be getting that reaction nearly as much.
Lis: First you may want to take note of the fact that Toysoldier didn’t mention the sex of the teachers, doctor or social workers and he said “…people, overwhelmingly women…” - how do you square that with your assertion that he entirely blames women for this?
Apart from that: Do you really think that those rude women Toysoldier mentioned have no agency - that they are programmed by men? (”societal narratives of how useless men are at feminine/nurturing roles are backed by legions of men…”). It sure looks like you do in your comment. And of course - if only men would change all would change. No need for those rude women to change their ways - no siree. They’re just mindlessly following the societal narrative backed up by legions of men. It didn’t occur to you that those women also are a part of the legions backing up this societal narrative? That society contains both men and women? So why write them out of the equation?
Those women absolutely are backing up the societal narrative and I would encourage them to change. But Toy Soldier attributed the individual reactions of these particular women, doctors, etc. to feminism generally. Which makes no sense. Recognizing that these women are influenced by the gendered society in which they were raised does not “blame men” it blames patriarchy. I know the people who hang out here and bicker don’t see a difference, but there is one.
ahunt, yes, I do remember that….but call me oneathem liberal SE Michiganders, I can’t help thinking of how little slack you would have gotten if it had been you who didn’t like the baby/toddler stage all that much.
Emily - because Toysoldier isn’t stupid, and knows that it’s very simple to bash feminists if you classify any woman who stereotypes men as a feminist. If it’s a good enough rhetorical trick for Christian Hoff Summers, it’s certainly good enough for him.
Lis, I am not blaming the reaction on anyone. I am just stating what he has said and what I have personally witnessed. Social narratives are not limited to one group. Women play just as much of a role, if not a greater role, in shaping society’s and men’s perception of men’s place in child-rearing. Some recent studies discussed women’s reaction to men taking more initiative with their children, most of which demonstrated that many mothers push fathers away out of fear that the child would bond more with the father. Some women “correct” fathers rather than let those men do things there own way. There is also the notion that mothers are “naturally” gifted with children. These things seem to have a much greater impact on men’s willingness to parent than anything else.
I would love to see more men like my foster father. However, having more men like him would not change anything until we address the narratives that treat fathers as superfluous at best — narratives feminism perpetuates. We must be careful not to essentialize and oversimplify parenting by claiming that certain ideologies make people better parents than others. Being Catholic does not make my foster father a great parent and not being a feminist does not make him a terrible parent either.
I’m sorry, but it is VERY controversial within feminism to suggest that mothers are “naturally” gifted with children. SOME people who call themselves feminists may think so (there is such a think as “difference feminism” after all), but I would think that MOST feminists and most feminisms reject that idea forcefully, vocally and vociferously. I certainly do. For you to ascribe those “narratives” to feminism rather than to our cultural heritage that feminism is fighting against is ridiculous. I don’t think there would be any point in continuing this coversation with you without first defining what this “feminism” you speak of is, because it’s certainly not the feminism I know.
Emily, the whole point of pretending “women belong at home with their babies” is a feminist ideology is to tie you into knots and put you on the defensive. Don’t bother.
“Emily, the whole point of pretending “women belong at home with their babies” is a feminist ideology is to tie you into knots and put you on the defensive. Don’t bother.”
Most of the arguments against feminism are intended to tie women in knots and put us on the defensive. This is why I’ve largely given up attempting to have any type of discussion with anyone who is clearly anti-feminist.
Heh…
I can’t help thinking of how little slack you would have gotten if it had been you who didn’t like the baby/toddler stage all that much.
Yeah, that would not have gone over well. But things are changing…as our sons demonstrate daily.
Emily, I was speaking in general about people considering women “naturally” gifted with children. It is a fairly common refrain and likely effects people’s response to fathers and take more active roles in children’s lives, by which I mean being an important figure in a child’s life, not fathers doing menial tasks like washing dishes or doing laundry. As for the treatment of fathers as superfluous, that is something feminists contribute to, along with the notion that men must become more feminine in order to parent. In that way, feminists support the notion that women are better parents by associating good parenting with femininity and feminism (which implies that men who are not feminine and not feminists are bad fathers). However, as I said before, I do not think one can attribute great parenting to an ideology nor do I think one should over-credit an ideology in such broad ways.
There are many women who hold on to the power associated with (mother-as-primary-caregiver) motherhood, who (as Toysoldier notices) push men out of parenting roles or take a critical stance regarding their mates’ competence to parent.
But that is a normal human failing, not a female failing or one motivated by feminist ideology. I love criticizin’ me some feminists, but I can’t lay this one at feminists’ doorsteps. It’s rooted in insecurity, which is a human universal, not a parochial failure.
along with the notion that men must become more feminine in order to parent
This doesn’t even parse. What does ‘become more feminine’ mean? That feminists are telling men they can’t raise children unless they wear makeup and grow their hair long?
As for superfluous, you really can’t have it both ways; if feminism means that gender roles are not rigid, then women are just as superfluous as men. (In fact, it’s the idea that men can function without the firm, guiding hand of women that frightens many traditionalist women.) A two-daddy family is not repugnant to feminism, though it seems to be for many MRAs, judging from all the flak Glenn Sacks gets.
Toysoldier said: “Some women “correct” fathers rather than let those men do things there own way. There is also the notion that mothers are “naturally” gifted with children. These things seem to have a much greater impact on men’s willingness to parent than anything else.”
So true. Its very easy to blame the male for not getting more involved, but really both parents have some responsibility. I definitely experienced this when my son was born. I think “naturally” gifted might not be the right term though… I think its more that women have more opportunity for experience with childcare (how many male teenage babysitters do you know?… I don’t know very many). Its definitely a cultural or societal thing, but once a couple has a kid, it is really easy to default to the woman, who probably had years of babysitting experience because it will probably be more “natural” for her, because she has done it before.
Because I was more confident initially, it meant that my way was the right way… it took a little while for me to realize that this was disempowering my husband who wanted to be more involved. Once I let go of my critiques and determination of the “right way” to do things, we became true co-parents… and its been awesome.
My husband gets those same comments, about how nice it is for him to give mom a break, admiring looks from people on the playground, how great it is to see a participating dad, etc. Usually when he tries to explain that he’s the stay-at-home-dad, he just gets blank, confused looks. And when he tries to explain to “progressive” friends that effusive praise for being a SAHD is insulting… its a long, hard argument for him to make them see that its just as bad to praise him for this decision, as it is to demean women who make the same decision… its all about choices. And isn’t that the advantage that feminism has really brought?
Amber: I agree that those kind of comments are rather insulting, even though Hugo calls these comments an example of male privelege. I would even go so far to in some instances call them misandric. Just as one could call the statement “Aaw, you’re such a cute and smart girl for changing the tires/getting an A on the math test” misogynic. Because they implies that the person being talked to is “special” and capable in a way their gender generally isn’t - even though we all (hopefully) know that isn’t so.
Quote, hugo:
“What made me want to write today was the comment thread below the Feministing piece, a thread in which a number of classic MRA (men’s rights activist) arguments were raised. The basic thesis: feminism has created a world hostile to men (at least in the industrialized West). Feminists have co-opted judicial, political, and educational institutions in order to advance what the MRAs call a “victim ideology”. Men and boys are alternately harangued and ignored, viewed by the feminist elite as either dim-witted oafs or dangerously calculating and predatory. Men are dying earlier and committing suicide more frequently because of their alienation from these woman-centered institutions, say the MRAs; the legions of young men hooked on pot or porn or Playstation (or all three) are the inevitable result of their cultural and social emasculation at the hands of a shrill and craven matriarchy. Or so say the MRAs.”
Amber,
I would not say that feminism brought anyone choices. There were and continue to be plenty of fathers who are the primary caregivers that are so without feminism’s impact at all. My foster father is an example of that. It was not feminism that gave him the choice to be the primary caregiver, but the changes in technology that allow him to work from home. If some people find feminism helpful, then that is a personal reflection. I do not think one can attribute that individual experience across the board.
I do think that if feminists value fathers and fatherhood that it would be excellent to see them support father’s groups, which they do not.
“I get to be a father, a husband, and a full-time employed person without contradiction, without suggestion that I am neglecting one responsibility by focusing on the other. That’s raw male privilege, and I understand it better as a Dad than I did as a childless man.”
SO. SO. TRUE.