DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN
OF ALL the issues that men could engage in the world, fatherhood is the one that has drawn the most impassioned demands for a 'male perspective,' and stimulated men's collective organising for voice, inclusion and representation. This is not surprising, as the just passed Father's Day showed. Fatherhood has deep meaning for families, and for men, even when it involves contradictions and complexities.
The recently-formed fathers' movement in TT has grown out of anger at mothers over custody and maintenance issues in particular, but has a generalised and largely uninformed opposition to feminism. It is concerned about positioning men as the real victims of (mothers') childhood abuse, (women's) partner violence, (feminised) state discrimination and an ideologically sexist gender division of labour (which defines men as providers) - issues which Caribbean feminists have analysed for decades in ways far more nuanced than this movement stereotypes.
There is actually a long history of Caribbean feminist work on care which argues that fathers are just as nurturing as mothers (and therefore that women are not biologically nor by evolution predisposed for unequal responsibility for care), and calls for more equitable sharing of housework and for better work-family balance (including paternity leave and daycare spaces in workplaces) since at least the mid-1990s.
Indeed, feminism's core politics is that our sex (as well as gender and sexuality) should not define either our nurturing or providing roles, nor time spent on housework nor rightful access to headship, power and decision-making.
It is also that care should be counted and valued as an ideal human quality for both women and men - whether in terms of childhood socialisation, sexuality, family, the economy, national governance, international relations or our relationship to the planet.
Finally, it is that patriarchal beliefs promote domination, hierarchy, violence and toxic expectations for women and men, and need to be transformed to improve all of our lives. This is an excellent foundation for men's movements which want to move beyond the sterility of a battle of the sexes - which is a patriarchal framing where everything is understood in terms of war, even family and fatherhood.
In this context, it was great to read the just released 'State of the World's Fathers' report, produced by Promundo, which brings together the valuing of fathering with feminist politics of care. The 'good news,' cites the report, is that globally, 'Men are participating more in unpaid care during the pandemic.'
Why is this good news? 'Due to lockdowns all over the world, at a global level men have been present in the lives of their children more than at any time in history,' concludes the report. Men are spending more time on daily tasks of time management, food preparation, schooling and the emotional labour of fathering.
This is a real-life basis for allying with feminist
