Representations Of Fatherhood Research Articles

Molding the Fear: Representations of Fatherhood in Clay by Violent Men

This article presents an artistic inquiry among three students during an art-based research course in the art therapy master’s program at Ono Academy, Israel. Their collaboration focused on composing inquiry modes that could explore paternal representations of violent men that arise in artmaking with clay. Three fathers who took part in an abuse-prevention art therapy group, their group facilitator as a witness, and the three student-researchers participated in the project. The paper focuses on the research method that comprised artmaking with clay, a questionnaire, observations, and discussions. Two main themes arose within the study: coexisting contrasts and false perfection as well as a gained sense of success and assurance that could project onto their perceptions of parenting. The project highlights the significance of artmaking with clay as a research tool and as a potential prophylactic treatment for preventing domestic violence.

Discourses on fathers who use intimate partner violence: an example from Icelandic mass media

ABSTRACT Despite an increased interest in studying masculinity in terms of the merging experiences of fatherhood and violence, the way this subject position appears in the media is often left out of the academic debate on fatherhood and masculinity. This paper offers a contribution to extant research on fatherhood and masculinity by providing a discourse analysis of how fathers and violence are constituted in Icelandic mass media from a feminist poststructuralist perspective. Our findings indicate that ‘good and involved’ versus ‘bad and violent’ fathers are framed in the media as two fundamentally different types of fathers. This paper demonstrates the critical role mass media plays in reproducing individualized discourses about IPVAW by presenting fathers who have been violent as a certain type of ‘strange’ and ‘dangerous’ men. Through this representation of fathers who have been violent, the media fails to acknowledge gendered social norms and structures that continue to produce IPV against women and children.

Reframing masculinity and fatherhood: Narratives on faith-based values in (re)shaping ‘coloured’ fathers

Stereotypes of ‘coloured’ men from marginalised communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, portray these men as violent, lazy, alcoholics, domestic and substance abusers and absent in the lives of their children. Although extensive research has been conducted on fathers and fatherhood, there is still a lack of positive constructions and representations of fatherhood. In narrative interviews with 11 fathers who reside in the Cape Flats, faith-based values were understood as possible restorative avenues for fathers. This article explores how faith-based values are used to redefine what it means to be a man and father but also to (re)negotiate their identity, role and responsibility as men and fathers. From a narrative thematic analysis, the findings present alternative narratives on ‘coloured’ masculinity and fatherhood that show ‘coloured’ fathers to be present and active in their children’s lives.Contribution: This article employed a descriptive modus operandi on masculinity and fatherhood. It focuses on (re)shaping fathers in South Africa to impede father absenteeism in families and communities.

Absent and Problematic: The Representation of Fathers in the Program Policies of Organizations that Provide Family-Centred Services in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Parenting education interventions and parenting programs are important for health promotion efforts among children and families; however, the majority of parenting programs are directed towards and attended by mothers. This is problematic because research has consistently demonstrated that fathers’ active participation in the family can have a positive influence on mothers’ well-being, children’s self-esteem, success in school, and interpersonal relationships. In this paper, using an intersectional poststructuralist framework, document analysis, and Bacchi and Goodwin’s “What’s the problem represented to be” approach (WPR), we analyzed the program policies of 12 organizations that provide family-centred services in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We identified the following three discourses: organizations strive to be client-centred and provide choices; organizations want to empower their participants; and women need safe place to raise their families. Our analysis revealed that fathers are absent or represented as problems in program policies, and that this has consequences for not only fathers but also mothers and children.

Fathers, Daughters, and Domesticity in the Early Novels of George Eliot

This article explores how George Eliot shows fathers in domestic life in her fiction by focusing on the core components of Victorian fatherhood named by Claudia Nelson, that is, “authority, guidance and financial support.” In the 19th century Britain, fathers were having privileges of ownership and authority while mothers were confined to nurturing and comforting in domestic life. Most of the researchers on fathers in Eliot’s novels have tried to analyze the father-daughter conflicted relationship from a psychological, or Freudian, perspective. Alternatively, this study by drawing upon the theories of Lucian Goldmann and Alan Swingwood, focuses on the representation of fatherhood by Eliot with the help of comprehensive and interdisciplinary supporting literary, social, and historical resources from the Victorian age. The article argues that Eliot brings up the problems of patriarchy and authority of fathers of the transitional period of the 19th century. Eliot emphasizes that fathers are actually aware of their responsibilities even if they are not always able to carry them out completely. In middle class families, the failure or success of the father as head of the family has a deep impact on the other members of the home. The article concludes that by showing weaknesses, Eliot actually yearns and desires for the perfect father and admires the “intimacy” of “rare manly fathers” of the 19th century. Thus, Eliot idealizes future where individuals recognize and fulfill their duties and avow social and familial bonds.

Representations of Fatherhood and Pre-colonial Masculine Otherness in Flora Nwapa’s Idu (1970).

Drawing on Nwapa’s representations of pre-colonial definitions of West African manhood, I will examine the interrelated ways of the male characters’ perception and yet distinctive ways of responding to pre-colonial hegemonic masculinity represented in Idu. Moreover, this chapter explores the narrative irony used by Nwapa to redefine notions of producing children, contest polygamy, and interrogate indigenous pre-colonial constructions of manhood in the novel. Her interrogation of indigenous masculinity constructions encourages us to recognize that representations of contemporary masculinities are constantly linked to pre-colonial patriarchal definitions of manhood, as will be shown throughout the following chapters. Using a qualitative research approach, my research paper argues that Nwapa, in Idu, exposes that the Nigerian pre-colonial association of hegemonic masculinity with ‘virility’ proves to be harmful, too powerful to be resisted, dehumanizing, and tragic. I contend that although a woman’s childlessness is presented to be equally painful, the novel sheds more light on the complexity of male infertility, and uses the ironic narrative as a mechanism to contest pre-colonial indigenous constructions of manhood in the Igbo society, redefining the Igbos’ attachment to producing children.

Representações sociais da paternidade: um estudo comparativo

A paternidade pode ser compreendida como uma construção social, sofrendo modificações na forma como é vivenciada e exercida em virtude de transformações da sociedade. Este trabalho buscou comparar as representações sociais da paternidade no ano de 2004 e no ano de 2014. Foi utilizado conteúdo de 17 depoimentos apresentados na sessão ‘Conversa de Homem’ da revista do tipo magazine Pais & Filhos. O referencial escolhido para a análise dos dados foi o método de associação de ideias de Spink. Identificou-se que, em cada momento investigado, o pai apresenta preocupações diferenciadas, as quais são influenciadas pelas demandas sociais vigentes e por sua bagagem pessoal. O homem parece cada vez mais interessado pelo universo infantil, buscando conhecimentos para se inserir de forma participativa na vida dos filhos. Além disso, prepara-se internamente para exercer a paternidade. Esse maior envolvimento do pai contribui para a transformação subjetiva do homem como sujeito.

Principal Sources of Information African American Fathers Draw Upon to Inform their Sons about Sex and Sexual Health Risks

BackgroundWhile parent-child communication about sex is associated with safer sexual practices among African American youth, there is a noticeable gap in the representation of fathers’ perspectives on talking with their sons about sexual and reproductive health. Moreover, less is known about the sources from which fathers seek information to inform such conversations. PurposeTo explore the sources of information used by African-American fathers that formulate the basis of conversations they have with their sons about sex and sexual health risks. MethodsThis was a qualitative study of African American fathers (N = 29) who had sons, ages 10-15 years. The fathers participated in one of five focus groups conducted across urban and rural North Carolina communities. Data were collected using a 2-hour, audio-recorded semi-structured interview. ResultsQualitative content analysis revealed three themes: a) fathers’ personal stories and testimonies; b) instructional media preferences; and c) religious teachings and moral examples. The findings indicated that African-American fathers considered father-son sex education an important and critical aspect of their fathering role. Additionally, we found that the content of father-son sexual and reproductive health communication emphasized the importance of sexual risk reduction, open communication, and sharing their values and beliefs regarding initiation of and appropriate context for sex. The findings have implications for social work, nursing, and public health.

Dadvertising: Representations of Fatherhood in Procter & Gamble’s Tide Commercials

Abstract In the digital age of branding when advertisements appeal to consumers’ belief systems, Procter & Gamble’s Tide uses ads that feature loving fathers doing the laundry. Building on masculinity studies and branding discourses, I explore representations of Tide’s dads as part of a wave of “dadvertising,” or advertising that uses fathers to represent ideal masculinity centered on involved parenting and emotional vulnerability. The advertisements in my case study show a spectrum of performance, from dads who justify their domestic labor with appeals to hegemonic masculinity to dads who seem at ease in historically feminized roles. All of these examples reveal dadvertising’s root in neoliberal gender politics and commodity activism, wherein evolving masculinities are personalized and commoditized into consumerist actions.

Representing Lives in China: Forms of Biography in the Ming-Qing Period 1368–1911 ed. by Ihor Pidhainy, Roger Des Forges and Grace S. Fong

Reviewed by: Representing Lives in China: Forms of Biography in the Ming-Qing Period 1368–1911 ed. by Ihor Pidhainy, Roger Des Forges and Grace S. Fong Elena Suet-Ying Chiu (bio) Ihor Pidhainy, Roger Des Forges, and Grace S. Fong, editors. Representing Lives in China: Forms of Biography in the Ming-Qing Period 1368–1911. Cornell East Asian Series, 191. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2019. x, 461 pp. Hardcover $125, isbn 978-19-39-16101-7. Paperback $35, isbn 978-19-39-16191-8. In Representing Lives in China: Forms of Biography in the Ming-Qing Period 1368–1911, editors Ihor Pidhainy, Roger V. Des Forges, and Grace S. Fong bring together contributors to explore biographical constructions and reconstructions in China from the thirteenth century to the twenty-first century. This volume covers a wide array of topics ranging from biographical accounts of the empresses in the Yuan (1271–1368) to the reception of Li Yan 李岩/巖 (d. 1644), a renowned advisor to the commoner rebel Li Zicheng 李自成 (1605? –1645); Yue Fei’s 岳飛 (1103–1142) descendants’ contribution to elevating his position to a superhero; the biographical writings and life stories of the Ming erudite literati; representations of fathers and sons in the Ming History (Mingshi 明史) and in painting; women biographers in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911); and social phenomena such as surname restoration petitions in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Responding to an increasing number of scholarly works pertaining to the lives of the rulers, scholars, officials, writers, elite women, and even revolutionaries in Chinese history published in recent years, this volume showcases a collective effort to exhibit the richness and significance of life representations in China based on a variety of source material. Representing Lives in China opens with an introduction that reviews studies of biographical literature in China followed by eleven chapters divided according to “three analytical questions” clearly presented in the introduction (p. 11). The first part, “Searching for the Subjects,” includes the first four chapters and provides close readings of selected life stories and biographical accounts while discovering what “extant stories and biographies tell us about how the Chinese subjects actually lived their lives in those earlier times and places” (italics in original). The second part, “Understanding the Authors,” chapters 5 through 7, focuses on life stories in various media and explores how contemporary and later Chinese authors depicted people’s lives in prose, art, and poetry. Finally, the third part, “Following the Texts,” comprises the last four chapters and explores how the Chinese texts were “created, published, revised, and transmitted over time and space” (italics in original). The three questions guide the reader to the thematic focus of each part of the volume while effectively connecting the three parts by centering on chosen texts and other artistic works. The editors not only organized the chapters in a logical manner but also paid attention to women’s roles in the biographical accounts, which is reiterated in the [End Page 306] conclusion (p. 357) of the volume. For example, in chapter 1, George Q. Zhao presents a study of the Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan’s 忽必烈 (r. 1260–1294) two empresses—namely, Chabi 察必 (d. 1281) and Nanbi 南必—based on the standard Yuan History (Yuanshi 元史). Although some steppe women played important roles in politics in Chinese history, according to Zhao the sharp contrast between Chabi and Nanbi in official history has proven that their public personae were reconstructed by the historians depending on when they became Khubilai’s companions and whether they were involved in political conflicts. As Zhao has convincingly demonstrated, the brief information about Nanbi and the fact that the Yuan History presents a much less positive image of Nanbi than of Chabi urge researchers to pay critical attention to what is absent in the historical records and find the reasons for the silence or gaps. Zhao’s chapter provides an excellent example of a close reading of the formal male-authored biographies of the empresses, whereas Yi Jo-Lan’s “From Female Martyrs to Worthy Mothers: The Shift in Exemplary Women’s Biographies in the Ming-Qing Dynastic Histories” focuses on the changing factors in the categorization of women’s biographies and...

The Ambivalence of Julian: The Paradox of Fatherhood in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Porcile

This article focuses on the representation of fatherhood in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s tragedy Porcile. It draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis, specifically on Massimo Recalcati’s interpretation, and on Lacan’s theories about the weakening of fathers and of the reconfiguration of father-son relationships in late-modern society. The article demonstrates how, by refusing to accept or reject paternal authority, the protagonist Julian undermines the two typical approaches to fatherhood consolidated by the patriarchal tradition and thereby alerts us to the impossibility of perpetuating the traditional model of fatherhood in late-modern society.

Forgiving and forgetting: South African reality television, fatherhood and nation

This article examines the presentation of mediated reconciliation on the South African reality television show Forgive and Forget (e.tv, 2007–2012). The show features a representation of Black South African masculinity that is located in the domestic realm and associated with care and emotion. This differs from the prominent figuring of Black masculinity in terms of the gangster trope in South African media. The national discourse on reconciliation and nation-building associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission foregrounds certain political figures as fathers to the nation. On Forgive and Forget, this narrative is relocated in the domestic sphere with regard to representations of fathers and their children. While on its surface the programme retells a familiar narrative of national reconciliation through family stories, there is an evident tension between a somewhat contrived reconciliation and the many contextual, economic and social complexities of each forgiveness story. These tensions themselves provide a productive space for reflecting on reconciliation through the lens of the family.

Longitudinal Influence of Paternal Distress on Children's Representations of Fathers, Family Cohesion, and Family Conflict.

A parent's distress is known to color children's experiences of their families. Studies, however, have rarely focused on the levels of distress experienced by fathers, and in particular, as they affect the emotional experiences of their children. We examine the impact that fathers' experience of distress throughout their children's early years has on children's emerging narrative representations of father-child relationships and of family conflict and cohesion. In this longitudinal investigation, fathers of young children reported their distress on two occasions in relation to self, the marital relationship, and the family climate. Fathers also concurrently reported on their children's temperament, specifically negative emotionality. Children responded to story stem beginnings about challenging situations in the family and their narratives were scored for dysregulated negative-disciplinary and positive parental behaviors of fathers, family conflict themes, and family harmony themes. It was hypothesized that children of more distressed fathers would represent greater dysregulated fathering and higher levels of family conflict, and lower levels of positive fathering and family harmony than children of less distressed fathers. Further, the study examined whether this effect was mediated through the fathers' reports of their children's negative emotionality. Results partially supported the hypothesized direct and indirect effects. Children's narratives of negative-disciplinary fathering and family conflict were more common in boys when fathers reported greater distress, and temperament ratings fully mediated this effect. However, their narratives of positive fathering and family harmony were not significantly affected. That positive family features were preserved in children's narratives even in the face of greater father distress suggests that families may be able to build resilience to internalized distress through these positive narrative features.

Paper Orphans: Writers' Children Write their Lives

Of the many memoirs of parents published in North America since the early 1990s, the great majority concern fathers rather than mothers. This pattern reflects the relational dynamics of the post-war middle-class nuclear family, typified by an absent bread-earning father and an available home-making mother. Memoirs of fathers (patriographies) tend to emerge from relationships that were experienced (by the writers) as deficient in some way or other. The books are best read not as static representations of fathers (i.e., biographies), whether favourable or not, but rather as attempts to claim or even fashion a relationship with a father who is absent—because of death, geographical distance, or emotional reserve. A significant number have to do with fathers who were creative intellectuals—writers, artists, and so on. In such cases, the child often has a fraught relationship to the father's body of work. For one thing, the father's creative work is what removes him from the house or sequesters him within it. Moreover, insofar as the father's intellectual labour produces a species of progeny, it may provoke a kind of virtual sibling rivalry. Furthermore, the work is generally available to a wider public, with whom the child may feel competitive. The writing of the memoir often attempts to renegotiate the parent-child relationship, in part by establishing a new relationship to the father's body of work.

Gendered representations of fatherhood in contemporary South African church imagery from three Afrikaans corporate churches

The South African secular media do not frequently portray men in parental roles; on the other hand, it seems that media and visual culture created by the Christian sector is more likely to engage with issues of fatherhood. Accordingly, it is relevant to explore representations of fatherhood in the Christian context, as these constitute some of the few examples of men�s parental roles in the South African visual culture landscape. Through a Barthean visual semiotic analysis, this article describes and problematises the representation (and non-representation) of certain aspects of fatherhood in the recent visual culture of three Afrikaans corporate churches in the Pretoria-Centurion area. It further establishes that strong connections between breadwinning, male headship and fatherhood exist in images created by these churches. Fathers are mainly shown as patriarchs, heads of households and as active outdoor adventurers. We argue that although men are depicted as involved parents, there are certain limitations and exclusions to this involvement.

Fatherhood and the non-propertied classes in Renaissance and early modern Italian towns

The relationship between father and son in the early modern period has been conceptualised exclusively in terms of submission of the latter to the authority of the former and as implying a one-way flow of obligations and resources running from the father to the son. This study reverses this usual perspective by showing that the legal institution of patria potestas also entailed a son's economic obligation to his father, for it gave fathers full rights over the earnings of their grown-up sons. It was to escape this burden that many adult men, sometimes married and fathers in their own right, resorted to the legal deed of emancipation, which freed them from the patria potestas of their living father and hence from any economic obligations to his family. The analysis of a sample of over a hundred deeds from the last quarter of the 17th century reveals that emancipations were particularly frequent among those urban classes which largely lived of their work and participated in the labour market from an early age. The arguments used by sons to justify their request for emancipation throw light on the specific nature of the father-son relationship among these groups. Fathers are often portrayed as too poor to comply with the duty of settling all male children in a trade and paying for the dowries of the daughters, and as obliged to rely on older sons to fulfil these essential paternal and masculine roles. They are implicitly depicted as failed patriarchs and their legal prerogatives over the son thus appear illegitimate. The analysis of these narratives, together with a brief examination of representations of fatherhood in earlier artisans' diaries exposes the gulf between shared expectations about fatherly roles and practice that made the position of the paternal figure particularly vulnerable among the non-propertied classes. Here paternal roles were often shared by a range of male figures, rather than being entirely fulfilled by the biological father. Tensions or simply emotional and physical distance characterised the father-son relationship, in sheer contrast with the rhetoric of the time, which depicted such bond as ‘the greatest love there is’.

‘Papa don't preach’: Fatherhood in a South African Christian men's magazine

The first international men's lifestyle magazine to enter South Africa was Men's Health in 1997, followed by FHM and GQ. Not unlike their international counterparts, these magazines have been extolled in the publishing sector for their commercial success and disparaged in academia for their potentially negative influence on the sensitive gender politics of the new South Africa. In 2001, a new breed of men's lifestyle magazine emerged in South Africa: one that catered to a particular cultural or racial niche market that presumably was not satisfied by the generalising tone of the mainstream men's lifestyle magazines. The Afrikaans Christian magazine MaksiMan is the subject of this analysis, as much for what it signifies in terms of the presence of vernacular masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa as for the texture that it brings to the genre of men's lifestyle magazines. Mainstream men's magazines typically refuse to include reference to the role of father that certain of their readers might occupy. MaksiMan breaks this trend through articles and features centred on fatherhood. This article comprises an analysis of the representation of fatherhood within this niche men's lifestyle magazine.

Christopher and Frank: Isherwood’s Representation of Father and Son in <i>Kathleen and Frank</i>

(2011). Christopher and Frank: Isherwood's Representation of Father and Son in Kathleen and Frank. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 199-218.

Christopher and Frank: Isherwood's Representation of Father and Son in Kathleen and Frank

Christopher and Frank: Isherwood's Representation of Father and Son in Kathleen and Frank

The representation of fathers by children of depressed mothers: refining the meaning of parentification in high‐risk samples

Children's representations of mothers in doll-play are associated with child adjustment. Despite the importance of fathers for children's adjustment, especially in the context of maternal psychopathology, few studies have considered children's representations of their fathers. We examined the portrayal of fathers by 5-year-old children of depressed (N = 55) and non-depressed (N = 39) mothers in a doll-play procedure concerning family experience. Children gave equal prominence in their play to mothers and fathers. Representations of fathers were unrelated to maternal mood, but were associated with parental conflict. Representations of child care for the father that was unreciprocated predicted poor child adjustment in school, but only in children exposed to maternal postnatal depression. It may be clinically useful to consider children's distinctive representations of their mother and father; but the concept of parentification in relation to risk and resilience effects requires refinement.