Another pro-feminist father answers my 10 Questions About Your Feminist Parenthood

I think a pro-feminist man can probably say nothing more honest about his feminism than this: “My feminism is awkward. My feminism is a bit abstract, but so is my life.” I love that – because if a man is not finding feminism a bit of a struggle then chances are he is not being all that self-examining about it. That line was a favourite from the wonderful response by Not Unimportant to my 10 questions about your feminist parenthood.

The blog, Not Unimportant is written by Cameron Mann and it is a lovely, introspective blog which also very often covers parenting from a feminist perspective. Incidentally, the last pro-feminist man to tackle my 10 Questions was Jeremy Adam Smith and if you would like to see more about pro-feminist dads then you can read about his response here.

Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist parent? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist parent?

Compromised feminist? Entirely. Frequently. This makes spotting and calling out sexist assumptions in me and in others a continual activity. As much as my ego can handle it, I invite others to point out and critique my failures.

There is no way to get all the sexism out of my head all the time. I learnt not to see sexism long before I learnt to see it. I strongly believe that what we learn first has a stronger hold than any subsequent correction (which is why I am concerned about feminism and gender and my preschooler son). A habit of carelessly using he/him in cases of unknown sex is probably the least of it.

Policing media (books, music and movies) is terribly hard work. I can’t find the energy to block Cinderella out, so basically hope that Abby Cadabby introduces variety. I am quietly confident that since my wife and I have made it to feminism through a less politically correct time, the attitudes to the content are more important than the content itself.

The arrival of gun play really forced me to accept that my son was going to be as gendered as anything. So, I don’t fight the gender nearly as much as I fight the universalising traps and the dichotomies. Just because he’s running around with a group of boys pretending to kill with finger guns that go ‘pew-pew-pew’ doesn’t mean that it will interest all boys, or interest only boys or interest him always.

(You can find all the many other responses in this series here. If you’d like to respond to these questions yourself you can either email me your answers and I’ll put them on blue milk as a guest post or you can post them elsewhere and let me know and I’ll link to them).