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Welcome to Harpy Seminar, a regular feature we plan to have at regular intervals, unless we get too busy to have it at regular intervals, in which case it shall appear whenever we have time and inclination for it. Each Seminar begins with a question, which we discuss amongst ourselves, and we then edit the highlights of our conversation into a post. Please feel free to join in in the comments!
Here at Harpyness we regularly caterwaul about the evils of Patriarchy, and sometimes of menz (although more individually than collectively). What you may not know is that all five of us are big fans of our own personal Patriarchs, both of the biological and step variety. So for Father’s Day this weekend, the subject of our roundtable is our dads.
Was your dad a feminist in any sense of the term? How has your relationship with your father–or stepfather or father figure–influenced your views about gender relationships and feminism?
BeckySharper: For me this is a two-parter, since I have two fathers: my dad and stepdad. They’re both extremely loving and affectionate but when it comes to gender issues, they’re like opposite sides of the coin.
My stepdad is a Southern gentleman who always opens doors for women and says “yes, ma’am.” And yet, he is completely feminist in his approach to women’s roles. He adores the strong, well-educated MamaSharper and never treated her or her career as anything less than equal to his. He is the Barack to her Michelle. He fully expected me and my stepsister to get an education, speak up when challenged and make our own way in the world. He loves that I am smart, assertive and dominant. I was raised in his home and it certainly helped empower me.
My father, on the other hand, prefers his women more traditional. After his divorce from MamaSharper, his second wife–not coincidentally–is sweet, passive, painfully non-confrontational, and sacrificed her career to some idealized notion of being a SAHM. And while my father’s proud of my intelligence and achievements, he is distinctly uncomfortable with my assertiveness. My brothers are much more brash and aggressive, but they get the shrug and “boys will be boys”, whereas for me the message has always been: why can’t you just pipe down and be sweet? The irony is that the outspokenness, the libido, the combativeness are all traits I get from my father. Under my father’s liberal, well-educated surface, I’ve always sensed a strong discomfort with feminism and outspoken women, and that’s probably made me more sensitive to the problem of traditional gender roles.
22 years later, he is now sending me articles and ideas that might spark blog posts, something that I find very touching. Whereas my mother worries that this blog is too “militaristic” (not that she reads it, but whatever!), my dad is firmly in support of me. He was also much more accepting of both my bisexuality and my decision to go to a women’s college.
My stepfather has been a part of my life since I was 10, and married to my mom since I was 13. In certain ways I’m closer with him than I am with my father, and I’m lucky enough that I can call both men “dad”. My stepdad also has no sons and multiple daughters, and he’s never once made any remark in my presence that has been even the slightest bit sexist. I can’t think of any evidence that points to whether or not he’s influenced my thoughts on gender and feminism, but I do know that he’ll never laugh or roll his eyes or shout me down if I start talking about feminism or patriarchy. And that counts for a lot.
But he is really one reason I could never subscribe to gender essentialism. He is the kid-lover of the family, everyone’s favourite uncle, famed for hours-long games of “hot hands” (don’t ask) and silly jokes. In a way it is sad he did not have more children. When my parents decided to get married they met with a pastor they wanted to marry them to discuss the ceremony. Towards the end of the meeting, he said, “So, will you have children?” And my dad said “Yup.” And my mom said “Nope.” And they had to negotiate that one out, and ended up with just me.
Because he is a goof my dad does occasionally make remarks about being “surrounded by women” or some nonsense, though he’s done it less since I started telling him those jokes bother me. But he never thought I was or had to be, anything in particular because I was a girl. His proudness of me is overwhelming at times, but I haven’t really any complaints.
My parents are best friends and the environment they created for me and my brother was great. My dad treats my mom well and my mom treats my dad well. My dad and I got a kick out of learning together and he encouraged me in my education and extra-curriculars (though never pressured me). I have great memories of reading books and doing puzzles with him. I used to lie in my parents’ bed every night as a little kid whilst my dad quizzed me on math problems. Another great memory I have is playing sports with my dad in our big back yard. He coached my church league basketball team when I was in middle school and we’d go to the local university’s women’s games together.
My dad has never, ever uttered a sexist word in my presence. He and my mom were more protective of me than they were of my younger brother, which I attribute to sexism and the fact that I was first-born. But other than that, my dad just treated me like his kid and let me be myself. He was also secure in his own manhood. I can’t remember him ever teaching my brother to “man up” or pressuring him to perform stereotypical masculinity. He cries openly – including every time we hug goodbye after a visit. We are not super close as adults but we enjoy each other’s company and still crack each other up. I adore him not just because he’s my dad, but because he’s a warm, generous person who makes the world a lovelier place.
The reason I doubt his bona fides is that I can see that he’s only too happy to accept his male privilege–not that he would recognize it if it bit him on the ass. Growing up, however, I didn’t get a lot of bullshit double-standards from him vis-a-vis life/chore/grade stuff; both my brother and I knew what was expected of the Dork-lings. And to his great credit, he never pulled–or even joked about–”let me get my shotgun” crap about my dating life. He actually was the one to suggest that the Dude and I move in together in ’98, shortly more than a year after we started dating: he said it was just practical. (Which it was.)
In general, he’s pretty respectful of women as a class, too, and I don’t recall offensive gendered language from him, or absolutist “girls can’t” or “women aren’t” sentiments. I think the fact that he (and of course my mother) raised me to go for what I wanted–and to think that I deserved if not the very best, then at least very good things–has pushed me to try things that other parents might dissuade a daughter from pursuing, and I’m fairly certain that I ended up with the Dude at least in part because he shares a lot of my father’s best qualities.
My parents were Ann Arbor hippies back in the day so growing up my dad would always, if asked, describe himself as a feminist. He always encouraged me in whatever I wanted to do. He and my brother had more of a “sports connection” growing up, just because they both love anything sports related but I always went to football games with them (even though I would sometimes bring a book to read, I’m a dork)
The BF (and most guys I’ve dated seriously) def share qualities with him. Like a corny sense of humor. Also I go for guys that are pretty laid back like my dad. My mom and I are the ones with the temper.
Oh, dear. I think my father’s gotten less feminist as he’s grown older, or maybe I never noticed it before. He’s always supported us and wanted us to do the best we could, but he’s also always pushed us into “male” professions. This is why I went to a master’s program instead of straight to law school: he’d been pressuring me to become a lawyer since the ripe old age of 9 or so. When my sister declared her intention to become a nurse, he said “well, that’s okay, but why don’t you become a doctor instead?” “Because I don’t want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse.” “But doctors–doctors can just do so much more.” So, not a lot of respect for a traditionally feminine occupation.
As far as I know, he’s never had any problem working with women as a career matter, but he hasn’t really had to, much. He and mom met while they were studying to be engineers, and he’s worked in male-dominated fields for his entire career. When he stopped working, he explicitly sought out men-only clubs to join (one celebrates dudeliness + heritage, the other celebrates dudeliness + religion, hooray.). Now he’s active in the local GOP.
I love my dad, but he doesn’t exactly have feminist credentials. I’m sure he’d balk if asked to identify as feminist, first of all, and I think I really hurt his feelings when on a recent visit I complained to my mother about “entitled old white dudes telling me what to do with my body and my life.”
To Dad’s credit: although we were generally punished for it, backtalk was ubiquitous in our house throughout my sisters’ and my teenage years. I still marvel at what a fresh kid I was. That, at least, allowed me to start practicing my railing-against-injustice chops early.
My father and mother had a very ‘ozzie and harriett’ thing going on, he made the money, she kept the house and kids, but they seemed to have a very equal decision-making ability. Me and my two brothers received exactly the same fair treatment, down to recently when he’s been distributing mothers things (she passed 4 years ago) to us exactly equally. For example, he didn’t assume as daughter I would want her diary or clothes anymore than my brothers and their wives might. He did use cringe-worthy generational phrases at times like ‘the little woman’, but he cried when she died. Us kids had never seen our father cry. Ever. During our recent reunion, he related that he was having some health issues, but that his doctor was doing HER best. I told him Dad, you know you could get a man doctor if you think you’d communicate better. He looked at me and said.. sex (gender)has nothing to do with it. I hugged him, hes 85 years old.
I just wanted to chime in with a shout-out to my dad, who is awesome.
Just like SarahMC and PhDork, my dad would probably never overtly claim to be feminist, although he kind of is, in his own quiet way. My mom’s pretty outspoken and chatty (traits I inherited, natch) and would definitely identify as a feminist. My dad’s much more taciturn, but everything he does and says (when he bothers to say anything, it’s always either true or important or both) reinforces the feminist leanings my mom expresses overtly. (He himself was raised by my awesome grandfather and kickass grandmother, so there you go.)
If anything, he taught me that it’s possible to be a feminist without being visibly identifiable as such; he also normalized feminism for me by not drawing attention to it. He raised me with the utopian belief that his quiet, effortless feminism was the norm. Now I’m much more cynical, of course, but I still think that my dad’s unspoken feminism has made me into a strong woman with high expectations re: being treated as an equal.
My dad… a feminist? Ha! You mean the guy who couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea female surgeon installing his pacemaker?
My dad is NOT a feminist. But he did raise me to be a feminist. I think that stems from his belief that men of his generation can’t be feminist because that would make them feminine. But feminism is OK for the younger generations.
My dad taught me to be independent of any man. Get married, yes. But don’t wait on a husband to buy a house. Marry a man who can take good care of you, but don’t depend on his money.
Again, I bring up The Cosby Show: if you want to understand exactly how I was raised, there you have it. Even tho’ my dad was blue-collar like James from Good Times, he married a strong woman like Claire and helped raise some pretty fiercely independent, educated, vocal feminist daughters.
I think of my father as a quiet revolutionary. In his own way, he subverted the patriarchal culture so entrenched in India. I am pretty sure he doesn’t know what feminism is, but I am one because of him.
Dad was born and brought up in a part of the world where conservative is normal, gender roles are deeply embedded, misogyny is rampant, child abuse in the name of culture is the norm. This is part and parcel of belonging to my extended family. My father went against his conservative Hindu family and married my mother who was older than him, was a Catholic Christian and from a state so far away that English was the only language they had in common the first five years of their marriage. They got kicked out their families for a short while for daring to do so.
My earliest memories of my father cooking all meals (my mom didn’t know how to cook) and sewing cute dresses (okay, he added a lot of frills and lace) for me. When my cousins decked up in sarees during festivals, he bought me Jeans and T-shirts to wear. (Yes, I used to hate it at the time, whereas he didn’t think there was any need for his ten year old to dress up as a grown up).
He was mostly absent during my teenage years working far away visiting only once a year when he could get time off. As a result, he was always the good guy and mom was perpetually the bad guy. I think he benefitted from that a lot. We reconnected when I was 21 and in the US of A. I was just beginning my feminist education, so of course, our relationship was contentious initially. We had major fights about philosophies. He was very opposed to ideas of pre-marital sex and relationships other than marriage. (In all fairness, his standards applied to men as well, but he felt that women would be disadvantaged in society more than men as a result of such actions).
Now, he identifies as a liberal person. He defends same-sex marriages, sometimes even to Indian super orthodox Christian gathering of my mom’s relatives. Unlike my mother who chooses to ignore it, my father recognized my brother’s struggle with his sexuality. And, unlike mom, he doesn’t nag me about being unmarried.
My father could just stick to what is easier & familiar, old fashioned ideas (like my mom and most other Indian parents I know) but he chose to face reality and evolve with the changing landscape. That takes tremendous courage. And that was my biggest lesson- to have the courage to challenge everything.
SarahMC, I really relate to your experience of having a conservative dad who is incredibly smart, loving, and dedicated to his family and friends.. and the republican party. He is definitely a feminist though, and raised me to be tough and self reliant. Its interesting, I’m dating a girl but she’s a lot like my dad – she gets stuff done and doesn’t suffer idiots, whereas my mom is more nurturing and so am I. One thing I’ve noticed is he’s gotten better with age – mellowed out, is more silly and affectionate, strives to be more understanding. I have 2 awesome older bros and I give my dad (and mom) a lot of credit for how the 3 of us are as adults.
Although my dad is a computer programmer and my mom an educator (i.e., they’re in professions that are traditional for their respective genders), my dad was the one who drove the carpool and took me to dance or soccer while my mom worked longer hours and advanced farther in her career. She always made more money than he did, she has a master’s and an administrative credential and now teaches college classes, while he’s got a BS and never had a management role at any of the places he worked. My mom is currently the Director of Secondary Ed in her school district; my dad retired in the middle of the pack. My mom knows more about cars than my dad does, and my dad makes better comfort food. (Which is not to say they don’t have some traditional roles they adhere to; my mom is DEFINITELY more concerned with keeping the house, dressing well, and entertaining.)
I have always really appreciated this dynamic in my family and have NO patience with dudes who spout nonsense about traditional women’s roles. I think it instilled in me a deep understanding that I can do whatever I want, and that there are guys out there who aren’t insecure about women who make more money or climb higher on the ladder than they do. I don’t really know yet whether I want to become a high-powered partner, but I do know I won’t tolerate men who would refuse to support that goal because I’m a woman.
@spicyplumchatni: Thank you for sharing that. I think we “Westerners” have a tendency to reduce many Eastern cultures to unflattering and narrow stereotypes. Thanks for providing a legitimate perspective not twisted by our inaccurate and unquestioned beliefs.
My father is a feminist. I love him dearly. He is quieter and gentler than my mother, with whom I am also very close. When I was a little girl my dad was the primary breadwinner and my mom the SAHM, but their roles reversed later on and she has outearned him for over twenty years now.
He told me all the time when I was younger that I was smart enough to do anything I wanted. As a chemist, he answered all the questions I had as a nerdy little girl — Why do water molecules stick together? What does blood type mean? When I wanted to see if you could actually fry an egg on the sidewalk, he gave me tin foil and a carton of eggs and a spatula and let me go at it (turns out that in the South Florida summer, yes you can fry an egg on the sidewalk).
When I was a teenager and my very Catholic mom discovered I was having sex and freaked the fuck out and wouldn’t speak to me for days, my dad is the one who took me for a car ride, told me he still loved me and respected me, and that he was glad I was being safe and using protection and that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. When I got my heartbroken twice in the past seven years and was in the depths of despair, it was my father’s patient voice and understanding that soothed me. When I have a medical worry, my dad is there. He believes in me one hundred percent. And he has always shown nothing but respect and pride in my mother and her intellect and accomplishments. I am so lucky to have him for a father.
I’m pretty sure my dad doesn’t identify as a feminist, but he’s never let anything stand in my way. And at twenty, i’m still his little girl, although he’s long treated me as being capable of making my own decisions.
he’s always trusted my judgment when it comes to the men I go out with and the boys I dated before, and he’d laugh in the face of any guy who asked him for permission to marry me(which would actually be hilarious).
At home I’d say we have some pretty traditional gender roles going on, since my mother works part-time and does the cooking, a role I definitely refused when I was a teenager; now I actually have been cooking for myself for three years, it’s become more of a pleasure, but I’ve always railed against the indoors/outdoors sharing that goes on with my parents as pertains to house stuff. To be perfectly fair, my parents live in the French countryside with fields,a couple horses,etc, so there is a lot of outdoor work to be done, on top of working fulltime, so I can’t hold this against him much.
My brother and I both have always had to do the same chores, but since I’m a neat-freak and my brother is a slob, I’ve always ended up doing a lot more, especially now I don’t feel as obligated to. Part of this is probably social conditioning, since girls always do more at home from what I’ve seen, but I know it’s never been a conscious push on my parent’s part to make me do more than my brother.
I’ve always known that my father highly respects my mother’s intelligence, often saying that she’s better than him, and he has the same attitude with me; I’ve never felt that he thought that women were lesser-than, and my brother wouldn’t dream of thinking that way. He’s always pushed me to do what I wanted, was very excited when I chose to study chinese, and is very proud that I’m moving to Taiwan in august although it means I’ll be on the other side of the planet.
We had a very bad relationship all throughout my teen years, and some of the same dynamic is playing out with my brother now, although much less so since my brother is the quiet one; we know we have very similar dispositions, which probably helped me a lot in life; after all, how could I think women were that different from men when I saw my own character traits in my dad all the time?It might not be very logical, but that’s how I saw it then.
As for boyfriends and sex, he’s teased me about them for years and years, he’s made the jokes about shotguns but we don’t have any guns in the house, and I know he sees them as stupid jokes. The only thing he’s ever told me is to be safe and use condoms
Basically he’s always trusted me, whether it might be about school, alcohol, drugs, sex, whatever, even when I was a teen brat who got into screaming matches with him every night.
In any case, although he might not be feminist, and I’ve never seen him cry, I’ve never seen him treat a woman disrespectfully, and I think that goes a long way.
(sorry, this is really long)
SarahMC, my dad and your dad could be twins. I couldn’t describe him any better than you just did.
My dad is the best, hardest working guy I know. At this very moment he’s standing on a ladder in front of my house re-building and screening our porch – just like he has been for the last 5 days. This is his summer vacation. And although he probably doesn’t recognize his actions as dismissing gender norms, he expects me to be out there nailing and sawing and power-tooling right along side.
I love my dad. Like, so much- and I worry about him a lot these days, because he has a tumor that has been biopsied with no conclusive results. It’s like my dad is a patient on House, except that they can’t run all the tests in the twenty minute section of the show between introducing the patient and solving the illness.
But a feminist? No. PHDork’s description works for my dad too: a my daughter can do whatever she wants-ist. Like, my daughter can read Torah and lead services beautifully- even though he goes to an Orthodox synagogue that would never allow me to do so. My feminism is a little too much for him these days, and we get into arguments about my liberal feminist politics every time I’m home.
But at the same time, he’s always supported me, and while the gender roles are hugely exaggerated these days now that I’m not living at home, I never really felt that my brother and I were treated too differently. Dad’s the reason I love baseball- sofalg, I think we’ve bonded over dads and baseball before. My favorite story is always that when he had a business trip to Detroit in 2001, and his business associate got tickets to a game at Tiger Stadium, during the last season at the old Tiger Stadium, my dad didn’t bring his seven year old son who was playing baseball already. He brought his nine year old daughter instead, and I kept score at the game.
@collegebookworm: Refuah shleimah to your dad! (and anyone else’s dad who needs some good news from the doctor)