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Fighting for fatherhood, the other glass ceiling

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By Stephen S Holden, O.P. Jindal Global University. This article was originally published in The Conversation.

In July a video by Aaron Dickson, in which he takes his three-year old daughter on her “first date”, went viral attracting acclaim (which is great) and disgust (which is disappointing).

With more than 8 million hits, many have applauded this father’s simple desire to treat his “princess” to a special first date.

But a good number think the romantic build-up in the video that leads to Daddy taking his daughter on a date is more creepy than cute.

The fact that many have remarked that the video is “creepy” and “doesn’t seem right”, indicates – to my mind – the kinds of challenges facing fatherhood. You can judge for yourself here:


Creepy or cute?

The face of fatherhood is changing for the better in terms of parenting equality between the sexes, but challenges remain. The tone of many of the negative responses to the video suggest we still see something suspicious when we see a man around children. Take the following instances:

  • Male child carers are treated differently, as the Aussie Childcare Network forum attests.
  • Australian journalist Tracy Spicer wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year that she does not want her children flying unaccompanied to be seated next to a man.
  • A well-meaning campaign countering child sex abuse in the US, showing a man holding a child’s hand, appears to encourage people to report him if “it doesn’t feel right”.
  • US journalist Lenore Skenazy documented multiple examples of how men are treated as potential predators in her 2011 article Eek, A male! for the Wall Street Journal.

‘This is haywire’

The negative responses to the “daddy-daughter date” video seem to suggest suspicion extends even to a father and his own child. Network Seven’s Sunrise anchorman David Koch revealed today in response to the controversial video that, while coaching his daughter’s basketball team, he was told he could not comfort or touch any girl that fell over and hurt herself. As Kochie put it, this is “haywire”.

It appears the prejudice against men as capable of child-care is deeply embedded.

A book that I co-authored with Charles Areni, launched this week as a part of Sydney Ideas, covers some of the facets of what we term “the other glass ceiling”. The original glass ceiling metaphor first used in 1984 by magazine editor Gay Bryant highlighted the invisible challenges facing women in their climb up the corporate ladder.

The “other glass ceiling” highlights the invisible challenges facing men who want to be engaged fathers or simply care for children.

‘The second parent’

Fatherhood is regularly seen as a kind of second-place. Men who prioritise parenthood are still seen in some way as peculiar.

In our book, we develop the idea that fathers are often treated like “the second parent”, an echo of Simone de Beauvoir’s plaint that women are treated like “the second sex”.

A subtle part of the challenge for admitting fatherhood as equal to motherhood is that, at least in the beginning of a child’s life, the mother’s involvement with her child is physical and visceral. But it is an error, a mistake, to assume the father is necessarily less involved and treats his role any less seriously.

Part of the solution may be for fathers to “step up” to their role, to challenge the promulgated stereotype that dads are either absent or dead-beats.

Passion-fuelled prejudices

Mothers (and society at large) need to “let go”, to allow fathers to take on this priority, to be engaged in child-care.

For now, passion-fuelled prejudices remain. Negative sentiment has “gone over the line,” as Kochie put it. Plato had Socrates say:

[Y]our zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the evil. (Crito 46b)

In this respect, the argument is exactly the same as that which motivated the original glass ceiling metaphor in the 80s.

Much has changed, but until a father can proudly share his pride in his darling daughter without unfounded sexist remarks being given airtime, we know we have a long way to go.

Stephen S Holden wrote ‘The other glass ceiling: fathers stepping up, mothers letting go’ with co-author Charles S Areni.

Read the original article.

Photo: pasukaru76

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  • Nigel

    Still I remember at school theI still recall from my school in the 1960s both the warnings about taking sweets from strangers and the danger of getting in a car with someone unknown. In a  the sentimental northern suburb this frank facing up to the dangers delivered at primary school  didn’t have the undertone that all adult men were suspect. Still very moral the social cues assumed “bad” people did bad things. Decades on , having abandoned notions of” badness” there is a vacuum it seems. One in which a sense of proportion appears impossible. Some men do bad things but all must be suspect as a result. Strangely some women do bad things yet this can barely be acknowledged. Moral panics ensue at precisely the point society grows safer and safer. A new evil arises “masculinity”, no longer the rarer and more diverse badness. It appears a quality associated with millions and millions of men proves panic can be the only response to this almost numberless threat. 
    And moral panics have of course their winners and their losers. Children find their world ever smaller 
     and circumscribed and “men” ? Well of course when the word was “black” in the US not a few of the numberless threat found themselves dead or imprisoned watched and kept at a safe difference. 
    As the fear of masculinity , well men, is cranked and cranked fed and nurtured. More and more fairness, proportion plain sense will appear to be  impediments to tackling a wide river of danger ever ready to engulf us. Moving a father from his child on a plane? Small price. Injuctions against fathers ,well regrettable but necessary, extra checks for male nurses and teachers embarrassing and confidential. A  constant chipping away, chipping, chipping, chipping at any notion that men are not always the “carriers” of something to fear. When the only evidence becomes the widespread fear of men. A circular loop.