It’s not just gender, it’s sex
CommentsFannie of Fannie’s Room wrote:
Aside from making a contribution of sperm to procreation, no one has thus far been able to adequately explain what it is that a male father can do that a woman cannot do when it comes to parenthood. David has claimed that while a lesbian can be a good mother to a child, she cannot be a good “father”?
Why? I’m not talking about procreation here, I’m talking about actually raising a child. What is it that it’s inherent in “fatherhood” that makes it impossible for a woman to fulfill this role? Like, what are the actual specific characteristics?
The answer, to me (in part) is that sperm-and-egg are not the only biological functions that relate to parenting. In other words, some of the reasons men and women make different contributions to their children are related to sex, rather than gender (I may deal with gender examples in a future post.)
So, for example:
• Mothers and daughters often (usually?) have an important bonding moment before or during the daughter’s first period. They discuss what menstruation is, why it happens, and what it means. They may buy the daughter’s first tampons together. By contrast, what are two Dads going to do - print out an article from Wikipedia, sit their daughter down, and say “It says here that the, um, fallopian tubes…” Premenstrual syndrome is another experience that fathers simply cannot understand the way mothers can.
• When a son hits puberty, a father does/should talk to the boy about nocturnal emissions and perhaps masturbation. These subjects are awkward and uncomfortable and sometimes filled with shame for most pubescent boys anyway - it’s a conversation that would be much more so with a boy’s mother or mothers.
• Pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding are moments in a young woman’s lifecycle in which her mother usually plays a special role. A father just can’t understand what his daughter is going through.
• Shaving (I’m not kidding) is an important ritual for young men. Lots of men remember fondly learning to shave from their Dads, and it’s not the same to learn it from a mother who only knows how to shave her armpits and legs (if even those - we are talking about lesbians after all).
Fannie has been arguing that gender is constructed. (Makes me wonder if she agrees, a la “Phantom Past” above, that sexual orientation is constructed.) Well, fine. But nobody thinks shaving or pre-menstrual syndrome or nocturnal emissions or breastfeeding are constructed.
I just disagree that parents of the opposite sex are not able to adequately do these things. Just because you may not like having, for instance, a menstruation discussion with your daughter, it doesn’t mean all gay men feel that way. We are talking about gay men, after all, who are pretty much women themselves.
The infinitely subtle and sophisticated attribute the sex/gender bring to parenting is a discussion way beyond the ability of most social constructionists.
They tend to try and force the discussion into a sort of “list” mentality. In this way they can undermine the “list” by claiming this or that other gender could physically do the job.
I’m afraid however the importance of natural Mothers & Fathers is much more sublime, and even sublimely obvious.
In this regard I am thinking of various empirical studies. One points to the fact that young women who have their married father in the home actually experience their first period (menstruation) later in life. Here we have an actual measurable physiological phenomena linked to father presence. If something so physiological can be measured imagine the infinitely more subtle aspects of socialization, psychology, emotion, spirituality, esteem, and love.
OR
Social scientists (and casual observers) have noted that young men raised in environments without constant positive (married) Father presence will group together and engage in #1. Acts of ritual violence #2. Sexual predatory patterns.
Essentially gang activity.
On this score I have much more to say (being a man & a son to a Father) My Father stands as a towering figure in my life. Someone who I constantly check and re-check my own life by and through. Absent fathers still maintain this role. With the exception that they teach the majority of their sons that a man is not required to be a husband to the mother of his child nor a father to his sons and daughters.
And so repeats the process of perpetual; child abandonment among the nations back and poor.
To Fanny: well, I am pretty sure, that even the most feminine gays never experienced premenstrual syndrome, dysmenorrhoea, pregnancy, or breastfeeding a baby - very personal situations where hardly a girl or woman would turn to her father.
DB: “So, for example: [...]”
Your scenarios aren’t nothing, but they’re precious little. The advice-giving you’ve described probably amounts to about an hour over 18 years and is perfectly feasible to outsource in any case. And while you could probably round up further examples, you’ve already hit the highlights, so the rest will be rather less deeply personal and even easier to outsource. After all, it’s not that you don’t want kids to have access to trusted adults with useful experiences who can give authoritative advice. It’s just that I don’t see that a case has been made that gender is nearly so pervasive an issue that you need a full-time live-in advisor.
For example, you want kids to be exposed to music and sport, but you don’t ban people with tin ears from having kids because they can’t teach their kids about music - you make it easy for them to outsource that bit. And, to take a more pointed example, the majority of gay kids are born to straight couples, so a responsible straight couple would naturally ensure that their kids have access to responsible gay adults who if the need arises could advise on gay-specific issues from a position of experience. But there’s no way that that needs to be a full-time job and in the same way there’s no reason to think that the gender-specific component of parenting needs to be full-time either.
Irmgard, I was hoping that the smiley face after my previous comment and the utter obviousness of the fact that males do not menstruate would have been enough to assure everyone that I was attempting to bring levity to the conversation. But alas… thanks anyway for enlightening us as to the obvious.
“in the same way there’s no reason to think that the gender-specific component of parenting needs to be full-time either.”
Except for 40 years of social scientific consensus on child outcomes on every measured indicator of child well being..
(????)