Fatherhood and the Reorganization of Men’s Lives, 1965-1993
Author(s)
Griswold, Robert L.
Abstract
Nothing has posed a greater challenge to the ideology of male breadwinning and traditional male prerogatives than the transformation in the household economy. Women’s work has destroyed the old assumptions about fatherhood and required new negotiations of gender relations. This means that the meaning of manhood and fatherhood can no longer be taken for granted. Fatherhood is talked about more, but understood less. Increased commitment to child care seems to define the new fatherhood, but how we square men’s sentiments with their well-documented resistance to carrying an equal load? Before analyzing the politics of fatherhood, we must understand the reorganization of men’s lives over the last twenty years.
