“Is Father’s Day outdated?” That's what Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, asked in 2018. For me, the answer is a resounding “no.” As long as there are men, fathers will be relevant and worth celebrating. And, I don’t just mean “father” as though it were interchangeable with the word “parent.” A parent, in my view, can be of any gender or none at all. If you are willing and capable of taking on the responsibility of parenthood, you can be a parent. A parent’s responsibility is to educate, entertain, guide, protect, provide for and love their child. My success as a parent … [Read more...]
One Dad’s Animated Battle Against Gender Stereotypes
If some gender stereotypes seem cartoonish by today's standards, is there a better way to discuss them than in animated video? That exactly what our own Whit Honea, a Los Angeles City Dads Group member, does in a recent piece for The Atlantic online magazine. Honea narrates "Outdated Gender Stereotypes Are ‘Very Much Alive,’" a three-minute essay on his family's experience with the assigning of old-fashioned gender roles in the modern world. The video is part of Home School, an animated series about parenting produced by The Atlantic. Previous episodes tackled issues such as … [Read more...]
Short Hair Locks Daughter into Unfair Gender Assumptions
A mom at preschool was admiring my daughter's short hair the other day. She complimented the adorable style and turned to her own preschooler -- a girl with shoulder length hair -- to encourage her to get the same cut. "It's so cute and so easy and comfortable," the mom said. "Don't you want to cut your hair into a pixie cut like that?" Her daughter resisted a bit. "Yes, it is all that," I told her. "But are you prepared for it?" I think I genuinely shocked them with my brief warning. My daughter wanted short hair. We were encouraging and the kids' salon we use has a stylist who … [Read more...]
Gender Stereotypes Limit Boys as Well as Girls
Many smart people talked about how to recognize and remedy the barriers confronting our daughters at a recent day-long Washington, D.C., conference on gender stereotypes in media and toys. These people, brought together by the White House Council on Women and Girls, furnished ideas about how to equip girls with the knowledge and tools they’ll need from childhood and into adulthood. But first, they talked about boys. This was no accident. Traditional gender stereotypes perpetuated in movies, on TV and in the design and marketing of toys and games do not only affect girls. They also affect … [Read more...]
Gender Role Stereotypes Create the Problem of the Default Parent
Let’s begin with a classic riddle: A father and his son go on a hunting trip. Suddenly, their car crashes, the father dies, and the son needs surgery. Medics rush the boy to the hospital, but upon seeing the patient in the emergency room, the trauma surgeon says: “I can’t operate on this boy. He’s my son.” How is that possible? The answer, as most of us would recognize instantly today, is that the surgeon is the boy’s mother. But for years people would wildly speculate as to how the “surgeon” was male — e.g. the father must not have really died, the non-dead father and the surgeon were the … [Read more...]