Search results for fathers

In this video, Campbell Brown analyzesGov. Ed Rendell’s comments, overheard due to standing too close to an open mic, that Janet Napolitano is perfect for secretary of Homeland Security because she has no family (you can also see the video here if the CNN site doesn’t play correctly).

In fact, the wage gap between men and women is made up, almost entirely, by the comparison between men (fathers or not) and mothers. Women without children make significantly more money than mothers. Conversely, fathers make slightly more than men without children.

Women without children do pretty well at work in the U.S. Of course, about 90% of adult women are mothers.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Both men and women should be troubled by representations like this.  It is insulting to men, of course. But representations of men as childlike also contributes to the idea that men cannot be held responsible or accountable for bad behavior.  As I have explained elsewhere on this blog:

So long as we buy into the idea that we can’t expect men to be good partners or fathers, we will tolerate women’s responsibility for the second shift and their placement on the mommy track at work.

This extends, too, to not coercing women sexually, not cheating, and being partners and lovers who give as much as they receive.

This portrayal of men as children, idiots, animals  (see here and here), and monkeys perpetuates patriarchy, even as this perpetuation is disguised by the denigration of men.

Susanne T. sent us this image of an ad at a busy stop at the University of Bremen, Germany (comments after the image).  Susanne translates the ad to read:

Kids are only well when mothers are well.  Her project ‘wellcome’ helps families to order the everyday chaos.  Strong women, strong country.

Feminist theorists note that there are two ways to integrate women into a society as equals to men: as citizen-workers (who perform the same tasks as men, namely breadwinning) or as citizen-mothers (who perform different tasks than men, namely parenting). If, and this is a big if, we truly valued parenting as much as we valued breadwinning, then the latter is a perfectly viable strategy with which to bring about a gender egalitarian society.

In the U.S., we conflate the idea of equality with gender sameness, assuming that any difference between men and women is a sign of oppression.  So, to many Americans, the fact that this ad makes fathers invisible and holds women alone responsible for parenting is problematic (as Susanne noted).  But different isn’t necessarily unequal and Germany (as well as France) has a tradition of supporting women as mothers.  By “supporting” I mean generous social policy that rewards women in concrete ways for reproducing the nation.

I’m not sure to what extent Germany still supports mothers with pro-natal policies.  Susanne’s critique may very well be more accurate than my comments about different ways of integrating women into the state.  However, I think it’s useful to problematize our assumptions about what equality would look like.  If women were truly valued for their unique contributions, that would be okay.  The problem in the U.S. is that we hold women responsible for childcare and also devalue that work. 

Adding freedom to that equality, of course, means state support for both citizen-workers and citizen-parents (of both sexes) and equally valuing both contributions.

Also see this post on equating motherhood and military service in the Third Reich.

I took this photo on Father’s day. The images were on the window of a Sephora store (basically, a make-up store) in Pasadena, CA. The text says:

father’s day is June 15.
who’s your daddy?

I’m sure it’s supposed to mean “Who’s your babydaddy?”  But still… do we really need to go there?

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

What is the relationship between the denigration of men as men and patriarchy? So long as we buy into the idea that we can’t expect men to be good partners or fathers, we will tolerate women’s responsibility for the second shift and their placement on the mommy track at work. So the Homer Simpson-esque sitcom dads and the Jackass teenagers, while incredibly degrading to men, also serve to perpetuate patriarchy.

Case in point:

Jessica at Feministing writes that this ad:

…feed[s] into the sexist idea that men deserve a cookie for being halfway decent human beings, but it also denigrates men by suggesting that they’re animals, unable to resist any ass that that happens to pass their way.

Another excellent example here.

This is from the WNBA’s website–it’s their Dads and Daughters page. When I first came upon it, I assumed it highlighted the fathers of WNBA players. There’s a Dad of the Week section and a schedule of games that have a Dads and Daughters event. But the Dads of the Week aren’t necessarily related to anyone on the team. They’re just dads who are being highlighted–one Dad of the Week is the Executive Vice President of Products at AOL. How the Dads of the Week are chosen is not clear.

I went to the NBA website and looked around, and unless I’m missing something, there is no Moms and Sons (or even Dads and Sons) page.

I have a theory about this. From the beginning, one problem the WNBA faced was not appearing to be a “lesbian league,” which would presumably alienate advertisers and audiences. To highlight the femininity of the players (because pretty girls who wear makeup can’t be dykes, right?), players were encouraged to wear makeup (and were even sent on Oprah to get makeovers) and players with husbands, boyfriends, and children were photographed with them and their profiles made sure to stress their family roles. When the WNBA began, the website had a forum about the uniforms (potential colors, shapes, styles, etc.), and there was some discussion of making the players wear skirts. [For an interesting discussion of gender in the WNBA, check out: Sarah Banet-Weiser. 1999. “Hoop Dreams: Professional Basketball and the Politics of Race and Gender.” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 23: 403-420.]

The Dads and Daughters page fits into the efforts to make the WNBA seem “family friendly,” i.e., not lesbian. The importance of men in women’s lives is reaffirmed (and also the idea that girls get their athletic abilities from their dads, not their moms). It makes it clear that the WNBA is not a “women only” social space.

The NBA has no need for a similar emphasis on women because we assume that male athletes are heterosexual (in fact, playing sports is one of the ways men prove they aren’t gay).