{"id":42,"date":"2010-10-06T09:17:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T08:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=42"},"modified":"2010-10-06T09:17:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T08:17:53","slug":"fathers-4-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2010\/10\/06\/fathers-4-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Fathers 4 Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a bit of wishful thinking really, but I was inspired by a conversation with my own father after I’d told him I was writing for this website.<\/p>\n

“Feminism? Does that mean you hate men now?” My father is a master of both dry wit and directness, you can’t foil him with flannel, so what I say next can’t be fluffy or theory-wanking.<\/p>\n

“No, it’s more about equality.” At this point I have to pause, because realistically my dad does not need to know the entire history of the feminist movement over tea and scones at the South Bank. He is taking an interest in my interests. Which means I should at least have the grace to be interesting.<\/p>\n

“We’ve theoretically got legal equality, but there’s still a lot of inequality in society. A lack of respect for women as people…” He’s still got his eyes open and therefore so far, so good. “Like when men call out to women on the streets if they are wearing dresses. Makes me feel uncomfortable to wear a dress, and that’s not on.”<\/p>\n

I can tell that I’ve got him right there. He starts to tell me about a time he was out with my brother and two men were “effing and blinding” (my father rarely swears) at a young woman across the street.<\/p>\n

“I might read up on this, on the internet, when I get home to your mum.”<\/p>\n

We return to our cups of tea, but internally, ideas are brewing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Why aren’t more fathers involved in the feminist movement? On the surface, it seems an obvious partnership. Surely no father would want his daughter to grow up in a world where she had less respect, less equality and less room to succeed than her brothers? Yet the link between “feminism” and “making life better for your daughter” seems to be feeble to the point of invisibility. Instead, there is a jump to the fear of the unfamiliar, the media-generated whispers of what evil feminists are like – man-haters to quote my dad, who is neither a sexist nor easily swayed by the opinions of the papers. He was just recounting what he understood the term to mean.<\/p>\n

I want to take a little time to unpick the relationship between feminism and fatherhood, with the hope of encouraging more people to think about feminism in a more positive light, to give them the tools to talk to their parents about feminism, and to (finally) get our dads on board.<\/p>\n

There is a lot of prejudice surrounding feminism and the family. This can range from the (in)famous Pat Robinson quote that “feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians” to the somewhat outre thinking (not to mention strange definitions) of a divorce campaigner in America<\/a>. A quick google for references to “feminism and the family” or “fathers and feminism” reveals heartbreaking commonalities mostly centered around the idea that the feminist movement is somehow trying to extract men from the entire family process.<\/p>\n

You can see how a wrong-headed reading of women’s rights might have picked up that impression. The longstanding assumption that an increase in freedom for women must naturally lead to a decrease in freedom for men (as if there were only a certain amount of freedom in the world). Changes in legislation over the past eighty years or so, from the vote, through to divorce laws, inheritance, mortgage rights (yesterday I was talking to a lady who told me when she was my age women couldn’t apply for a mortgage by herself) and so on have all enabled women to move from being reliant on men to being more self-reliant. However, this move is all too often read as a move away from<\/em> men rather than being a move toward engaging with<\/em> men on equal, independent terms.<\/p>\n

The stock figures often quoted as examples of how feminism is destroying the family unit are the rising divorce rate. Personally I take issue with the idea that relationship status is indicative of a strong family unit – I would much rather that parents were happy with each other and unwed than unhappily married. However, that aside it’s important to note that\u00a0 it is almost impossible to gauge what, if any, influence feminism has had on these numbers. Frankly, if feminists could somehow cause such vast social change, then it’s unclear why we still have such crappy rape prevention or why little girls are forever dressed in pink. More is at issue here – starting with the lessening of religious influence in our daily lives (if marriage is not a sacrament, then divorce is no longer a sin), the decline in different social status for married versus unmarried people (there is less incentive to remain within an unhappy marriage) and the lowering stigma of the single parent (although I would argue that single mums are still pilloried by society whilst single dads put on pedestals, but that’s another article). This is social change, perhaps influenced in part by feminism, but just as equally influenced by all the changes that have occured in the last century. The world has changed.<\/p>\n

It is easy to sneer at those who think that feminism is damaging to the family.<\/p>\n

But before we sneer, we must understand what we are looking at. The truth is that what feminism wants is deeply challenging<\/em> to a traditionalist and parts of what feminism is hoping to achieve can also be somewhat difficult to swallow by almost anyone raised in the modern UK: it involves a complete step change in our understanding of the family unit which has massive knock-on effects in most areas of society – work, education, retirement, marriage and relationships. If we wanted a truly equal setting for the family, in which neither gender is assumed to have a “natural” role in parenting – and I think we do – then all of these things must change both in theory and practice.\u00a0 And that is mindblowing. Here’s how: try and think about it. Picture, in your mind, if you can (and I find it quite hard), a world in which mums and dads are given exactly the same weight and priority by society. Have exactly the same expectations placed upon them. Are communicated to by the media and advertising in the same fashion.<\/p>\n

In other words, that parents are treated as parents, rather than isolated and grouped according to gender. And we aren’t surprised by it. Dads change nappies. Mums go out to work. Dads do the dishes. Mums do the school run. Parents Evening is exactly that. There’s no assumption or hierarchy in who might be better at doing what beyond what each individual is able and willing to do. People with ovaries teach children to throw and kick balls in the playground. People with Y chromosomes make chocolate crispy cakes (and mostly mess) in the kitchen. Maternity and paternity leave cease to exist and we have parental leave. No-one bats an eyelid.<\/p>\n

It’s a strange place, isn’t it? But wonderful.<\/p>\n

And it’s a place I think we can get to, if we try to break down the barriers that exist between perceptions of what feminism could really mean to fatherhood.<\/p>\n

In the UK there are a number of dad centered internet institutions (nowhere near as many as for mothers – mumsnet<\/a>, for example, is\u00a0 a huge and generally positive and useful resource, but despite the claims to be “by parents for parents” is still in name and deed more focused on women than men). These include Fathers 4 Justice<\/a> and other similarly named organisations that fight for changes in family law, including the website Dads UK <\/a>which again focuses on access, divorce and children. As far as I’m aware, neither of these organisations have strong links to UK feminists, and in some cases a scan of their pages reveals the same sort of prejudices that are repeated over and over and over again – that the feminist movement took their children away. It’s a little bit like 21st century witchhunting. Scapegoating is easier than finding the real solution – especially when the real solution involves complicated individuals and their lives rather than a nice easy public target.<\/p>\n

So how do we change this for the better?<\/p>\n