Encouraging fathers to spend more time with their children with laws like mandatory paternity leave is misguided, from a feminist perspective, because the main effect is to strengthen the social construct of fatherhood which is, quite literally, the backbone of patriarchy.
I know the phrase “social construct” has been bastardised to the point of sounding almost automatically ridiculous now, but fatherhood as a social construct doesn’t mean both sexes aren’t needed to create a baby, it means the male sex is no longer needed after that point; it means the idea that children need a male parent in their lives is a myth, and it means that the central importance of the father in the family is artificial, and, yes, socially constructed. It means if we weren’t living in a male-centric, male-worshipping, and woman-hating society, fathers simply wouldn’t have anywhere near the importance mothers have (and probably no importance at all), not only because their contribution to making a baby is laughably minuscule compared to the mother’s contribution, but also because - fathers are wholly unnecessary to the process of giving birth to the baby, of feeding the baby, of raising the child, and all the roles they have given themselves to pretend they are needed (protectors, providers) are not dependent on a man being the actual father of the baby and could be fulfilled by anyone, including other women; - in fact, these roles they have invented for themselves are dependent on our world remaining a dangerous place for women and children. Men need to keep hating and hurting women in order to retain their artificial, constructed importance in women’s lives - if men didn’t hate and hurt women, who would need them as a protector? If men didn’t keep women economically disadvantaged and exploited, who would need them as a provider? - fathers can’t even be sure that they are raising their own children or the children of other men without developing technology to check or inventing artificial constructs (like marriage) to control women. How natural can fatherhood be when everything it rests upon has been constructed by men to serve their own interests?
Some links and research:
“[S]tudy attempted to determine whether biological father presence made a difference in children’s cognitive ability or behavioral adjustment and sought to find how many of the effects of father presence were explicable by referring to background or indirect effects such as economic provision… when maternal characteristics and family resources were controlled for, almost all of the impacts of father presence disappeared… almost all of the father’s impact on the family is related to economic support.” Crockett, L. J., Eggebeen, D. J., & Hawkins, A. J. (1993). Father’s presence and young children’s behavioral and cognitive adjustment. Journal of Family Issues, 14 (3), 355-377.
“An estimated 10.5 per 1,000 children living with only their fathers were harmed by physical abuse in 1993, which is more than two and two-thirds higher than the incidence rate of 3.9 per 1,000 for children living with both their parents. Children in mother-only families were not statistically different from those in both-parent households in their risk of physical abuse under the Harm Standard.” Data from the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, put out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Bos, van Balen, and van den Boom (2005, 2007) reported that lesbian social mothers (non-biological mothers) had higher quality parent-child interactions, were more committed as parents, and were more effective in childrearing when compared to fathers in heterosexual marriages.
“To the extent that we operationally define the "meaning of fatherhood” in terms of actual father involvement, fathers (both present and absent) and mothers are not equal parents. The question, then is, how large is the discrepancy between what fathers and mothers in American society feel they should both do, and actually do? Furthermore, there appears to be a view that these possibly immutable gender differences should not be extinguished. Therefore, is it advisable for government programs or policies to encourage a completely egalitarian or identical notion of parenthood?“ ”While it would be a seemingly obvious proposition to most of us, that fathers’ consistent and substantial involvement in child care would benefit the child, this appears to have not been well established. The relationship between paternal involvement and children’s well-being seems to be mediated by a number of other conditions that involve the father, the mother, and the child. In other words, increased paternal involvement does not automatically result in improved child outcomes. Nor is it clear whether the father’s involvement provides unique nurturance that can not be as readily provided by substitute caregivers.“ Both from: The Meaning of Fatherhood; Koray, Tanfer, Battelle; Memorial Institute; Frank Mott, Ohio State University; 1997, http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/fathers/cfsforum/apenc.htm
A father’s most important role, and the one common "father factor” in all research that indicates any correlation between father involvement or presence and positive effect on child well-being is: a father who emotionally cares for, financially supports, respects, is involved with, takes some of the work load off of, and generally makes life easier, happier and less stressful for… his children’s mother.“ NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE PROGRAM - https://www.fatherhood.org/doclibrary/evaluations/247DadAM_Eval_BaldwinCty.pdf
The bottom line is, women are naturally central and men are naturally peripheral, of secondary importance; babies do not need their father the way they need they mother; there is no evidence that children are better off with a male presence in their life (if anything, it is often detrimental and correlated with higher rates of abuse); men cannot give birth and be sure that their children are theirs so it makes no sense for societies to be patrilineal; very few men are actually needed to perpetuate the species - and men hate all of this. They have created a lot of myths and social constructs to obscure these facts and make society look otherwise; to make themselves seem central (the father as head of the nuclear family) and make it look like the world needs as many men as women (the sacred complementary heterosexual pairing). It really highlights how everything about patriarchy is artificial and forced, when you look around and see that men have given themselves central and important roles everywhere when in reality they have no reason to be anything but peripheral and auxiliary. And the fact that patriarchy is artificial and forced means it requires great continued effort and collaboration to keep it going, and a lot of this effort is provided by het and bi women, most of whom will furiously defend these social constructs (fatherhood, the heterosexual couple) as natural and good, because they artificially elevate them above another group of women, and they’ll take what they can get.
Basically, as a lesbian with lesbian mothers i.e. a woman who has zero incentive to believe in men’s importance in any area of society, I am suspicious of any efforts to help men reinforce the myths they have created to make themselves seem indispensable, and that includes efforts to give fathers a greater role in children’s lives.
