Re-claiming or re-shaping fatherhood.

ABSTRACT

There is an emerging trend to recognise the importance of fathers in health service provision. This is consistent with feminist objectives to re-shape fatherhood to enhance gender equity in the home and in the workplace. How best to include fathers in services, overwhelmingly utilised by mothers, is now a topic of considerable interest. However, the desire to re-shape fatherhood in ways conducive to gender equity is easily co-opted by conservative political agendas which do not seek to re-shape fatherhood but re-claim the rights of fathers by re-instating paternal authority within the family. This cooption is facilitated by new fatherhood discourses utilised by many service providers which blame mothers for the lack of fathers' involvement in early infant care. The paper argues that mother-blaming is aggravated by service providers who fail to understand the nature and extent of maternal anxiety and by unrealistic images of the new father.

KEY WORDS

family; fatherhood; mothering; paternal authority; service provision; sociology

Introduction

Before the last Australian federal election in 2004, the leaders of both major political parties entered into the new fatherhood debates. While each was concerned about the role of the father within the family, their political agendas reflected a different ideal for the new father. The language used by Prime Minister John Howard, more clearly reflected the interests of fathers' rights groups whose aim is to 're-claim' the centrality of the father's role within the family. This aim may or may not necessitate a transformation in the role of fathers. For example, the Prime Minister's references to 'shared care' were in the context of ensuring fathers had the right to equal access to children in family custody disputes. He had little to say about the need for fathers to participate equally in the day-to-day care of young children to ensure gender equity.

The short-lived Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, on the other hand, more clearly expressed an interest in re-shaping the role of fathers, expressing his concern that fatherhood needed to be transformed. Men's primary identity as family breadwinners needed to change in line with the increased participation of women in paid work. In his speech to the National Press Club on February 18, 2004, for example, he referred to the need to transform fatherhood in order to re-build male identity. His references to shared care were made in the context of changing workplace practices and implied that fathers needed to participate more fully in the day-today care of their young children in order to adapt successfully to the greater participation of women in the workforce.