That's right, if you need any more proof that conservative policy agendas hurt women, then look at this study of fathers of daughters as opposed to sons, who tend to vote more liberal on issues of reproductive rights, among other issues.
Andrew J. Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee write:In remarkable research, the sociologist Rebecca Warner and the economist Ebonya Washington have shown that the gender of a person's children seems to influence the attitudes and actions of the parent.Warner (1991) and Warner and Steel (1999) study American and Canadian mothers and fathers. The authors' key finding is that support for policies designed to address gender equity is greater among parents with daughters. This result emerges particularly strongly for fathers. Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, the authors argue, the anticipated and actual struggles that offspring face, and the public policies that tackle those, matter to those parents. . . The authors demonstrate that people who parent only daughters are more likely to hold feminist views (for example, to favor affirmative action).
By collecting data on the voting records of US congressmen, Washington (2004) is able to go beyond this. She provides persuasive evidence that congressmen with female children tend to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues such as teen access to contraceptives. In a revision, Washington (2008) argues for a wider result, namely, that the congressmen vote more liberally on a range of issues such as working families flexibility and tax-free education.
Interesting stuff. What if your child is gay, lesbian, queer, trans, etc? Are they then also more liberal? I feel like we have some examples to the contrary, but would be interesting to see what patterns are in general. Thoughts?
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I am lucky to come from a family that supports me as a woman and as a lesbian. Though my mother is Republican and conservative, she believes in individual rights above all else - which include my individual rights as a woman and a lesbian. She tells me she has gotten more liberal raising two daughters and sees the gray area a lot more than she used to. My father has also said he finds himself becoming more socially liberal.
I do think there is a pattern. Fathers stop seeing women's rights as political abstractions but real, necessary freedoms. And parents in general stop seeing the "homosexual agenda" and see their children who just want to be safe, happy, free and equal.
Sometimes all it takes is a real, human face to make people realize what equal rights really means.
Well, when the phrase "more liberal" is used, the question is more than what? More than fathers of sons is what we're supposed to be looking at here, but I'd say rather that the difference is between a father who has a daughter, and the views that same man would hold had he had a son instead.
In my own life, I've often joked that the gods put me here purely to be a challenge to my father's worldview. Nobody would call him a liberal - he'd hit you if you did - but according to my mom and paternal grandmother, he's gotten a lot less conservative on certain issues in the past ten years. And we all think this is due to my influence. When I was a kid, my dad was anti-gay-rights, misogynist, Christianist. And then I grew up to be a queer pagan woman. And his beloved firstborn, for whom he wants the world and everything in it, is simultaneously his exalted child who can do no wrong and yet also...a woman. Bisexual. Pagan. These days, he voted against a parental-notification abortion law after I sat down and told him what that law would have meant to me when I was a minor. He voted against Prop 8 when I reminded him that this was my right to marry he was voting on. He still assumes Christianity on the part of the government ("America is a Christian nation!") but in private conversations, he actually says "goddess" instead of "god" when he talks about deity to me.
My father isn't necessarily more liberal than any other man who has a son...but he's certainly less of a hardline conservative than he would have been had he not had a daughter whose very existence created a paradox in his mind and forced him to choose between believing that women are inherently inferior, and believing that I can do anything I set my mind to.
I have a very similar experience as Jadelyn, My father would never admit to being the slightest bit liberal; in fact, some of his beliefs are downright offensive. However, having three daughters causes him to see things in real life that often modify the theories in his head. Issues like workplace equality, sexism, etc. that affect his girls continually cause him to be more of an ally than I would have ever expected.
My dad was like this with Gardasil. My family expects me to only date Christians and not have premarital sex, even though I'm 25. But when I asked my parents about paying for Gardasil (I described it as "the cervical cancer vaccine"), my dad was all for it and willingly paid the full cost out of pocket. If he had had sons instead of daughters, I don't know if he would have ended up feeling the same way.
Ok I've got to ask (and I know this is a tangent) because I've never encountered a pagan before: what, broadly, are your religious beliefs? Are you polytheist or monotheist, or is it more of a lifestyle than a religion?
You mentioned Goddess, so I looked it up; is this relevant at all to your beliefs?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/subdivisions/goddess.shtml
I'm an agnostic and must confess that I'm slightly baffled by the very idea of paganism... What led you to it? If you feel like entering a coversation please email me at:
j.dewey312 at googlemail dot com
I'd be very interested to here from you
I am not surprised by this data. Before I was in high school, my father was politically apathetic; I don't think he voted, but he was registered as Republican. When I became involved in politics at 15, my father valued my opinions. The night before every election, he and I would sit down and go through the ballot together. In a way, I've been voting since I was 15 because my father would often reflect my political views at the polling place.
This past election, my father very passionately voted for Obama and against Prop 8. Partially, this was due to my influence, bringing GSA material home in high school and campaigning for Democratic candidates for the past nine years. I was an only child for ten years, so I think my father's political progress reflects the data posted above. I'm so proud of how my dad has grown politically!
I'm inclined to think that the results would reveal highly polarised results amongst the parents of gay, trans e.t.c. offspring.
IMHO, conservative parents who disown their child are much less likely to change their values; they have chosen these over the love of their child, and clutch them ever tighter to compensate for the hole they have made in their lives. They have painted themselves into a corner and cannot back down.
On the other hand, I'm sure that they are quite a few Dick Cheney style social conservatives.
Finally of course, we have the old-fashioned social hypocrites with their rationalisation of exceptionalism - it's OK for *my* daughter to be gay/have an abortion e.t.c. because *they* are a special case, whilst everyone else is a disgusting sinner.
And weirdly, I can't even remember Dick Cheney saying an anti-choice word, at least in public. I doubt he's actually pro-gay marriage or pro-choice, but he's at least anti-anti-gay marriage and apparently anti-anti-choice. Even evil has standards, it seems.
Or maybe he fudges it and is one of those guys who says, "Leave it up to the states" because he knows some states will allow it (and thus his daughter can marry a partner of her choosing in at least some of the country).
I see in this some possibility for further insight into the cultural expectations on men. The conservative "pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps" sense is easily seen in the macho culture expected of men. A lot of men have grown up to expect it of themselves, and those same men would implicitly expect it of their own sons. This post seems to indicate when raising a daughter, men will tend to put more thought into the realities of what will actually benefit her, in a way he may not for his own interests, or those of a son.
That's a great point. There may be an inherent "my boys can take care of themselves by my little girls need help" attitude.
I'm not surprised. I can see this in two ways which are probably inter-connected: 1) Fathers feel the need to protect their daughters 2) They see their daughters as a social and financial asset and early pregnancy sets that back.
Do lived experiences shape one’s political ideals? Absolutely.
But in this case, the “personal is political” mantra does not apply, and while we’ll try to find patterns that fit into our claims, there really isn’t enough to prove anything.
For every Barack Obama who stands on reproductive issues may or may not have anything to do with having two daughters, there's a George W. Bush, who, despite having twin daughters of reproductive age, is not a champion of the feminist movement.
For every Joe Biden (I love this man!), who, in arguing for the Violence Against Women Act, said the effort to protect women against gender-base acts of violence “empowers my daughter and granddaughters,” there is a Jeremiah Denton (D-Ala), who argued against Biden’s assertion that women needed protection under the law against martial rape with: “ …[W]hen you get married, you kind of expect you’re going to get a little sex,” despite having two daughters.
For every Jerry Sanders (San Diego mayor) who stood up to defend gay rights because his daughter is gay, there are the likes of Dick Cheney, who opposes gay marriage despite his daughter’s sexuality.
So, if we’re going to look for enough evidence, we’re going to find it. But the truth is that none of this is inclusive.
Also, it seems like such claims take away from the fact that perhaps liberals can be such out of altruism. After all, just as one does not have to be a woman to fight for women’s rights, or non-white to fight against sexism, being a parent of daughters should have no bearing in whether one takes a stand against social injustices.
Marc
Well, rather than enumerating solitary examples, Ms. Warner and Ms. Washington formulated an experiment to gather data, and then tested their hypothesis for statistical significance. This is a pretty well-established procedure.
If you have problems with the composition of their experiment, or of their establishing statistical significance, please feel more than free to elaborate on that, but ignoring the research methodology altogether is being unnecessarily dismissive.
Sam, well-established by whom? The general academic community or by feminist researchers?
I hardly believe traditional research methods readily apply in fields of feminist research. An academic study that fails to properly engage in human subject research is not a very good one, and compiling Congressional voting records hardly counts as human subject research.
I am going to have to look more into their research methodologies to be able to buy into this. If you have a copy of the complete study, I'd love to read it.
To whom did these researchers speak? By which methods to interviews did they apply? How did they go about calculating the data? What are their political backgrounds and lived experiences? All of these factors (and more) go into whether their methodologies can be render valid.
Again, I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I am merely questioning the validity of this study from a feminist epistemological stand point and saying that, perhaps, we should so readily buy into something before looking at the actual data.
Marc
You might want to rethink your first sentences, where you said Sam, well-established by whom? The general academic community or by feminist researchers?
First, this isn't feminist research; it's economic research. The paper being discussed (Washington 2008) was published in the American Economic Review. It just comes to a feminist conclusion.
Second, suggesting that feminist researchers use poor quality methodology relative to the rest of academia is a good way to get ignored or get a lot of people angry. It sounds extraordinarily prejudiced. If you're going to make such a claim on a blog called Feministing, I'd highly recommend you back up your assumptions with some actual data about methodologies.
Finally, much of the data is viewable in what I think is a paper that discusses the authors' results, in case you don't have access to the AER at your academic institution. HREF=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/oswald/daughtersrestat08.pdf
What sbeath said. You're essentially suggesting replacing modern research methods with an amalgamation of anecdotal evidence.
So the scientific method and generally accepted research techniques are good enough for psychology, sociology, geography, anthropology, political science, economics, history, education, etc.
But feminist studies need a entirely different (and notably less rigorous, repeatable, testable, and falsifiable) methodology?
Blah blah. We really don't need the "feminist studies is not 'real' academic 'work'" complaints here right now. There's an entire body of work and debate within women's studies devoted to critiquing the privileged position within the academy and the sciences of rationalism, "logic," "objectivity," and deductive reasoning.
Please. Go read some of it. Use Google. Try Nancy Tuana, _Feminism and Science_; or here, http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fem-epis.htm, or here, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-social-epistemology/, or here, http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/fem_epistemology2.html .
What the study referred to concluded is that, after controlling for other factors, congressmen with female children tended to vote more liberally than congressmen without female children, especially with respect to reproductive rights.
If you're going to criticize the study, criticize the study. But don't wave your hands and throw out scare quotes while yelling that statistics is sexist, and then claim that the path to understanding trends in large groups of people is collecting anecdotes.
Calm yourself - nobody is claiming sexism. We're (at least I am) claiming that feminist research needs to take a different approach than "traditional" research, and that unless a study into gender takes such steps, it's somewhat skewed.
Again, no one is screaming sexism, no one is losing their minds, no one is angry, some of us are merely applying "ways of knowing" into the research.
You're right--I misread what you were saying. But reading what you're saying correctly bothers me almost as much as what I thought you'd said.
The blanket dismissal of quantitative results by qualitative researchers is just as insulting and uninformed as the dismissal of qualitative results by statisticians.
Statistics aren't inherently anything--it's just that the rationale behind collecting them and interpreting them can be flawed. The same is true of qualitative data. Questioning the data just because it's quantitative which seems to be what you were doing is still uninformed.
Actually, I was arguing FOR the position that feminist studies is real academic work. So nice straw man there.
Arguing for more rigorous research techniques is not the same as dismissing a discipline.
Actually, no, you weren't, dude, because it seems you still think that feminist research and methodologies can just use other hard sciences' research tecniques and be okay with it. But it requires more. Just because a study seeks a feminist conclusion does not mean that it's a feminist study.
It seems here the post is coming from several positions. Those who think that this study is not feminist, therefore does not qualify to speak on gender issues; there are those who think the traditional hars science's ways of research is good enough, and there are people who think that by dismissing a study for its feminist implications, one is anti-feminist, as sbeath clearly did.
I highly suggest re-reading my response before jumping all over it.
That's the fundamental problem: this wasn't feminist research, but economic research. By this, the data itself is tainted in that it does not take into account feminist factors.
If anything, my questioning of the research result is to say the data on a research that has to do with gender and society is at best incomplete without utilizing feminist research methods. This is not to say that research methods used by hard sciences do not apply, but in dealing with gender, they fall extremely short.
So, if we're going to cite a study that has all kinds of gender and power implications, I at least want to know if a feministic approach was taken in this study.
Okay, why don't you be more specific. What "feminist factors" need to be accounted for in order to decide whether the conclusion is correct or not? You still haven't actually addressed the study.
Oh, sure I have. But I'll do it again.
Just because a study comes up with a supposed feminist conclusion does not mean that its methods were feministic, nor does it mean that the conclusion holds feministic implications.
In research feminist and gender issues, researchers have to take into consideration what the "truth" is. In short, do the conclusions succintly reflect the standpoints of human research subjects, with the all intersectionalities taken into consideration?
Gender, power, race, color, economic privilege all play a great deal in feminist research, to include the relationship between the researcher and the subjects. In feminist research, how the researcher records and interpets data is also an issue to consider. In short, because there are explicit and implicit power differences in the genders, one as to examine all those factors and abide by certain methodologies and praxis. Not all knowledge was created equal.
Simply plugging in numbers based on Congressional data is not good enough to qualify as feminist research
Unless a study specifically takes all those factors (and more) into consideration, it is neither feminist nor reliable as a tool to deconstruct social actions that have to do with gender.
What I do mean, then, is this research is not well-founded in that, and it be hoove of us to get more information before buying into it.
Am I making at least sense here or am I just babbling?
Okay, I think I might agree with you. You're not arguing that this study is incorrect in it's conclusion, but that it is not a "feminist study." I agree - it's a statistical study, and it comes to a clear and objective conclusion - congressmen with daughters vote more liberally, especially on reproductive rights issues, than congressmen without daughters.
However, earlier it sounded like you were questioning whether the above conclusion was true or not, based on anecdotal evidence.
What Naught said.
I do apologize to you for not having been precise with my original response. Sometimes, feminism, especially the academic, gets lost in translation over cyberspace. Looks like we're on the same page here.
My only concern was that we were taking studies not inherently feministic in methodologies and making them into frameworks by which we can define oppressions.
I've only skimmed through the study, so I can't really comment on it any more than just "this is not a feminist study."
Marc
Lots of reading tonight then!
I wouldn't go singing the praises of Obama here. This same man keeps company with the likes of Larry Summers. Summers is the man who declared women genetically incapable of excelling at math and science. Obama is the kind of hypocrite I don't need associated with my movement.
That is not what Lawrence Summers said, and this common misperception is why he was fired. Not for what he said, but for the uproar of the media who reported on something that was close-but-no-cigar to the meaning of his comments.
What Lawrence Summers actually said was that women's intelligence may show a smaller standard deviation than that of men.
Also, he never stated this as fact. He didn't even say that he necessarily thought it was true.
He stated it as a hypothesis.
It is a much more interesting and less offensive theory than "Summers thinks women are stupider than men," and does not at all imply that "women genetically incapable of excelling at math and science."
Um, actually according to his own account of it and the account of several faculty members present, he referred to possible differences in innate ability and cautioned that we shouldn't attribute it all to socialization, even though it's easier to do that. And he repeatedly downplayed the significance of work environment factors and the way the tenure track coincides with the reproductive years (which doesn't impact male faculty who also tend to have their children during these years).
In addition to HoyaGuy's remarks, Summers also brought up the women-with-less-aptitude idea not only as a possible hypothesis, but one possible hypothesis of several.
I personally think that Summers is a hack devoid of talent (or at least devoid of talent beyond self-promotion) and agree that discrimination in science and society at large keeps women from advancing in science, but I think it's better to save the kind of disdain you're giving Obama for the thousands (millions? billions?) of people who are more entitled to it.
sbeath, I don't mean this to sound dismissive, but do you mean that you consider his scholarly work to be 'hack'-ish? And if so, are you an economist/an economics major?
I just ask because it's very rare to find someone with economic background who actually believes this. If you are, I'm curious as to why
Admittedly, I am still a student. But what I've read of his work was rather well done.
I'm not an economist; it's a personal, not professional opinion that I based on his public track record for the past couple decades.
According to a recent NPR story (I wish I could find it), during his Clinton years, he was at least partially responsible for firing the administrative lawyer who suggested that credit default swaps needed to be regulated and for pushing for legislation to keep them from being regulated.
After that, at Harvard, he's famous for misspeaking and bringing up old tropes that inevitably prolong debate and prevent people from taking even simple actions (like blinding reviewers) that would address problems of fairness at least, and possibly increase the women in the workforce. I think Summers would be lucky to have that be what people remember about him at Harvard, because in 2002, he again fired someone who suggested the investments that his institution was making were too risky. Currently, some sources report Harvard may have lost half its endowment because of its overly-aggressive (risky) investments.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the work he's done and overemphasizing his role in it (for example, Harvard investment people seem to have done some extremely stupid things after Summers left), but it seems that Summers has not only been part of administrations that ended up in trouble, but has actively invited trouble in by firing whoever (rightly) told him something he didn't want to hear.
Sources here: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/04/03/ex_employee_says_she_warned_harvard_of_risky_moves/
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/diploma-mill/2009/01/27/losing-harvards-billions
ach, I always hit submit too early--the administrations don't end up in trouble when Summers leaves, but the institutions (US, Harvard) do seem to be in financial trouble that is traceable at least in part not only to the administration that he was in, but to him directly.
Ah, OK. My general opinion is that Summers is a brilliant economist, less good as a government official, and temperamentally unsuited for academic administration.
So not inconsistent with what you're saying, which I don't particularly disagree with.
I wouldn't be telling another poster what to do.
The next time you throw out anti-Obama ideas, you might try looking at the overall make-up of the site before doing so, huh?
No one is singing Obama's praises, but rather, acknowleging his stands on pro-choice issues.
Oh, and since when the hell did this become YOUR movement? You don't speak for other feminists in the movement! You sure as hell don't speak for me.
Want to take issues with certain Obama stands? Fine. But don't jump all over another poster for citing his records. Still bitter about the primaries much?
I voted for Cynthia McKinney. Don't assume you know my politics. I'm not a Democratic party shill, who follows that party like a puppy, licking it's face and taking whatever crap it chooses to hand out.
If Obama is going to surround himself with people like Summers (and, as has been stated, Summers has talked about innate ability--believe it or don't, but it's what he said and he has defended both that and anti-affirmative action positions), he's open to criticism. Period.
I didn't assume I knew your politics, but now that I know for whom you voted, I am guessing you're not interested in actual changes.
You see, while you're free as a person to vote for whomever you want, know that you're not going to make a bit of a difference. Passion and altruism are very different from real changes.
As a Democrat and liberal feminist, I don't assume we can win every battle - or that the best way to bring about change is to pout, and go out there and waste my vote. Like it or not, the systems of government we have is here to stay, and we either work with what we've got, or we get left out.
You do whatever you have to do, and no one is going to criticize you, but do me a favor and do not piss on my feminism, as if somehow we're not bringing about change or that we're too naive or unaware about our politics and our surroundings.
In the end, let me ask you this -- this election cycle, we saw Democrats and liberal feminists bring about changes in policy by voting for Obama.
What the heck did your vote do? What will McKinney ever do to being about feminist changes in America? The times are changing, and you can either be a part of the change, or you get left behind. From the looks of it, you Green Party fanatics are choosing the latter.
So, yeah, vote for whomever you want, and believe in whatever you want, you have more than the rights to do it. But don't assume for a second that we're not bringing about change, or that the pathetic Green Party is going to do anything positive for America legislative wise.
By the way, as a Socialist, I doubt very seriously that any movement you're a part of is anything I care to be associated with, anyway. I'm not a reformer, which is my biggest problem with mainstream feminism (of which you appear to be a member). I don't believe in kissing the ass of the establishment and begging for it to throw me a bone.
By the way, and I am not being hostile here, but truly curious: how the hell do you hold such radical viewpoints, and claim to be a socialist, yet are able to support a candidate who affiliates herself with the Roman Catholic Church? Why vote for someone whose views are probably shaped by a very patriarchal religion that devalues women? Are there such things as socialist Catholics?
I am happy to hear this - I've often wondered about it myself due to my own experience, like many of those above me.
My dad, I think, was basically apathetic towards most feminist issues before he had two daughters, and probably fairly sexist in his mannerisms (mostly due to how he was brought up, I expect). However, now that four of his five precious children have turned out to be girls, there is NO WAY he would let anyone get in the way with us being the best and doing the most we can do simply because we're female. While he doesn't talk directly on the subject, I know he expects the world to treat us no less than it would treat a male (and he expects no less from us than he does from our brother!), and he'll have words for anyone who tries to do otherwise!
well, i know it's been proven by psychologists that the most effective thing for breaking down prejudice of any sort is direct knowledge of someone in that marginalized group. i've heard that numerous times. so it seems quite logical to me that the closer one is to someone, and especially when one is materially responsible for someone in that marginalized group, the less likely it is for one to manifest hatred/discrimination toward someone in that group.
these sorts of conversations always make me think wistfully of my grandfather, who raised me after my dad took off, and then died when i was in high school. i've never met someone so simultaneously hateful (racist, sexist, homophobic, you name it) and loving. once, he heard on the news about an incident at harvard, in which one female student murdered another, and he said, "that's what you get when you teach women to read!" i got up in his face about it, which was rare for me, because i was pretty scared of him, and told him to keep his mouth shut. but, at the same time, he's the one that started my college fund, and cheered me on when i got great grades and gave me the difficult talking-tos when i didn't. i miss him a lot.
Your grandfather reminds me exactly of mine. My grandfather treated me, my mom, all of the family extremely well. However, he screwed around on my grandmother, spoke some of the most hateful racist crap I've heard in my life. I still have problems with the dichotomy. I've come to realize that I absolutely still love him, but I have zero respect for him.
Frankly, I am surprised. My father would throw someone out of our house for using a racial epithet when I was a kid. However, he constantly derided the abilities of women. He didn't teach me a lot of things that I wanted, needed to know how to do because I was "too weak" (specifically due to gender). I had to go have others teach me how to do those things. Besides, he had a son who validated his manhood. My brother's sports achievements were all-important to my dad. I was first in my class, straight-A, a ballet dancer, etc, but the only thing that he cared about was who my boyfriend was. When I brought home a jock, that was very important to him. My personal accomplishments meant very little.
Now, my paternal grandfather had no sons, so he taught his daughters about how to hunt, to fish, to fix a car, all those things I wanted to know to do. Would my grandpa have done that if he had had a son? I doubt it. I think he would have been like my dad. That's the deal: if they have a son, they don't care so much about the daughters; without a son, it's different.
Fortunately, my husband is not like either of those men. He is extremely close to our daughter. They go skateboarding together. She goes to his band practices. They used to wrestle and rough-house as she was growing up. He is very involved in our son's life, but not as much as he is with our daughter. That is largely because our son is autistic, but I don't think he'd be more involved with our son than our daughter, anyway. Perhaps equally as involved, but not more.
I also believe that having a man like my husband in her life has made all the difference to our daughter. She is everything I wish I could have been at that age: strong, self-confident, sure of herself, unwilling to compromise just to be accepted, unconcerned about fitting beauty standards, physically, verbally and emotionally assertive, willing and able to take physical risks (like riding her board at the skate park, along with all her male friends). While I play a role in that, I believe that having a man like her daddy around has taught her that she doesn't have to fit within the boundaries of prescribed femininity to gain male love and approval. She just has it because she's awesome.
I didn't get that, and I believe it had a huge impact on me. It was a big reason I was sexually active at such a young age (14 years old); gaining male approval and keeping it was absolutely paramount to me. I did what I felt I had to do to get that. Sexual abuse beginning at the age of 4 taught me that male attention and approval could be had if my body was available to them. My dad's preference for his son made me feel that I needed that attention and approval very badly. On the other hand, our daughter, at almost 17, is a virgin who is completely uninterested in having sex. ("I don't even need to go there right now," she told me.) She believes her daddy is "perfect." He may not be, but he's damned close.
Unfortunately, there are still too many girls growing up with misogynist jerks as dads. There are men I've known, seen on TV, or heard on the radio. They talk about their daughters. When they get around to expressing opinions about women, in general, being the father of a daughter has little affect. The things these men say about women makes me cringe, horrified that this kind of jerk is helping to mold and destroy the mind of a young girl. I think about what that kind of man is doing to his daughter(s), and I feel desperate. While it would be bad enough if he were teaching another generation of males to act and think like him, but twisting the mind of a girl against herself is a kind of evil.
Unfortuantely my father has yet to become a liberal. The roles aren't gender equal in my parents household and my dad will on occasion "jokingly" say sexist things to me when I get feministy in conversation.
I wasn't very political in my youth. I am a feminist thanks to women's studies courses in college and to the women in my family.
If only more men this day and age were feminists!
That's really interesting and I've seen it play out in many families I know and am acquainted with - and *especially* in families with two or more daughters, or families with all daughters and no sons.
My sibling and I are even gender split - me and my brother - so we probably don't serve as a good test family. :o)
On the other hand, my mom's more hippie family had four boys and one girl and were (and are) still very liberal and pro-choice.
Fathers who vote to expand and keep their daughters rights? Mothers who vote to expand and keep their daughter's rights? Women who vote to expand and keep their own rights? My gosh, what is this world coming to?
Well in all honesty does this really surprise anyone? I mean parents, at least in my experience, want the best for their children. So if they have daughters, they want the best for them and are willing to fight for them. If they don't have daughters but have sons, does it then come to a surprise that they may be more inclined to help their sons and pursue more male related issues?
On a side note, it was my liberal father who has shaped me, the oldest, and my two younger sisters (much younger) into Feminists/MRA's.
My father is very liberal. I'm his only biological child, but he has three more. An adopted daughter with his ex-wife, whom he lost contact with because of his ex-wife ran off. Then he has two step-children from my mom's previous marriage, a boy and a girl.
But I think his liberal attitudes stem more from his mother. As far as I know he's been very liberal long before having kids.
Keep in mind that the research results were re: "people who parent only daughters are more likely to hold feminist views."
But all families are different. I know quite a few women who were rejected by their dads at a young age - because they were girls. It's sad.
I think the men who get feminism after parenting girls are probably left-leaning to begin with. But having daughters sends them over the edge. I doubt many hard-core patriarchal types go feminist just because they have daughters. If that were the case, patriarchy would not have lasted this long; men have been parenting daughters since humanity began.
This was certainly the case in my home. My father had two daughters and this parenting totally changed his career and life path. He was initially a constitutional historian, but raising young girls in the 70s made him look carefully at women's issues and related issues of pay equity, divorce and its aftermath and poverty. Indeed, he joined the Women's Studies faculty at his university and volunteered for many years at the Legal Aid Society's housing clinic. When people would ask him why he did this, he would say "I see my daughters in these women's faces."
And, although my sister and I are both straight, he was extremely supportive of my best childhood friend when she came out. Unfortunately he passed away before her wedding and did not get to meet her wife, but he loved her just the same. When I had problems initially accepting that my friend had come out (which I have long since resolved, thankfully), HE was the one who told me I needed to "get over it and be happy that (she) gets to love and be who (she) is."
Yea for feminist dads!!!
I have also read studies showing that men with daughters (especially daughters who are teens and young women) are more likely to by sympathetic to rape victims than are childless men or men with only sons. In fact, at trials, prosecutors want young single women (who identify with the victim) or middle aged fathers of daughters (who see their daughter) while defense lawyers want young men or fathers of sons (who are more likely to see the man as "led on" by the victim) and older women (many were raised with the idea that only sluts are raped). Obviously, of course, there are exceptions, this is the trend.
My father was supportive but he's not a good example, being a long time political radical with a principled position of gender equality, as was my mother. But when I graduated high school at 16 and wanted to go out of town to college, my mother was the one who was protective while my father said by all means go. And I went.
I tend to agree that parents have to be somewhat open minded to begin with in order for their daughters to influence them. I think it's pretty well known that not all parents want what's best for their children, unfortunately. That being said, when you have a compassionate, but clueless dad, having a daughter can really help to open his eyes on certain issues.
My parents are both republicans, but mostly for economic reasons, not social ones. I don't think my father was a hard-core right-winger before he had daughters, but I think having us around really opened his eyes on certain issues. The same is true beyond feminism, too. Both my parents are Catholic and would probably oppose stem cell research if it weren't for the fact that I'm a diabetic. Having real life experiences really forces people to see things from another point of view.
One thing I have to point out, however, is that as much as my father treats me with respect, it has been sad to watch him take so long to treat my mother as an equal in their marriage. It was a long struggle for them both. I wonder why it's so much harder to treat your wife with respect than it is to treat your child?
Not at all the case in my house. I am the oldest of 5 girls, no brothers and my dad is as right wing as one can possibly get. It was clear to all of use from an extremely young age that we were resented for our horrible sin of being born with a vagina. My dad is sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-choice, you name it. Of course, this is the same man who thinks he deserves a gold star for allowing us to live in his house and not starve, so maybe not the best example. Also the man who refused to talk with me when he found out I was having sex until the day I got married.
While I am coincidentally a dyed in the wool liberal, feminist and a father to a great, smart, loving, independent 9 year old girl, be careful how you interpret the research.
In a study like this one, there is no way to prove causality. Too many variables in play that were not controlled. This is called a correlational study, that only measures two things that happen at the same time. Nothing in a survey can measure that one causes the other. Sorry. It just can't be done.
It's a common mistake. I see it all the time (especially on the news). But it's like saying in the summer, when ice cream sales are higher, the temperature is higher. Therefore, if I sell more ice cream in January, it will get warmer outside.
Correlational. Not causal.
Yes to the thousand power. A while back a correlation was found between parents who tested high in mathematical reasoning and having boys. No one assumed that having boys made one better at math.
I wish this had been true in my case. I often marvel at how my father could have possibly raised 3 daughters and still holds such misogynistic views on women.
Before everyone goes all postal on me and throws out the troll card hold on. Let me say that I check this website on a near daily basis, have it on my blogroll under Liberal blogs, and cite articles here semi frequently.
As to the issue of the economic focus off this poll I think that is true. But I do not think fathers adequately factor in the social issue of abortion on this. As my daughter will be three in August, I find the feminist commitment to unrestrained abortion problematic, particularly on parental notification. Recent videos that exposed Planned Parenthood covering up an under aged girl attempt to get an abortion without parental consent is inexcusable. I fail to see how any feminist could justify such action. So I wonder how many fathers took that into account when thinking through their view on this.