Fatherhood

Popular images and assumptions about fatherhood are often intertwined with problematic attitudes about gender, sex, power and heteronormativity. However, fathers and men are essential in the fight for gender equality.

Trump’s Cartoonish Performance of Masculine Strength, from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.

PUBLISHED 6/13/2025 by

Donald Trump’s decision to mobilize the military in Los Angeles was made against the reasoned judgment and expressed wishes of LA Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The recent actions of the president present yet another opportunity to observe, in real time, how the Trump era continues to be shot through with destructive and antiquated ideas about masculine strength – along with growing pushback against them.  

It might or might not be coincidental, but the fact that Trump called in the National Guard and a contingent of Marines into downtown L.A., just the week before the president’s expensive and ostentatious celebration of military prowess for his 79th birthday and the Army’s 250-year anniversary.

Sneak Peek: What’s Up With Men? Ms. Magazine Summer Issue Tackles ‘Brocasts,’ JD Vance and the State of American Manhood

PUBLISHED 6/13/2025 by

It’s true that many boys and men are struggling. It’s also true that the right has successfully weaponized those struggles in their relentless attacks on feminists, liberals and progressives, and anyone else they can accuse of “wokeism,” and subsequently disparage and defund.

The “Special Report on Men” in the upcoming Ms. Summer issue—on newsstands July 1—seeks, instead, to understand the ways in which men’s struggles are connected to larger questions of gender and power that feminists have wrestled with for centuries.

You’ll find:
—Why is the vice president sitting like that? Organizer and writer Garrett Bucks sees through JD Vance’s awkward posture to reveal his self-defeating message for young men.
—Mental health clinician Jewel Woods argues that healing men and boys requires looking beyond grievance-based narratives.
—Jackson Katz promotes an untapped strategy for preventing violence against women: making it men’s work.

… and more!

This Father’s Day, Let’s Break the Manosphere’s Hold on Young Men

PUBLISHED 6/13/2025 by

Father’s Day is a celebration of caregiving. Let’s also make it a day for men to be emotionally sensitive guides, not just breadwinners or protectors.

Let’s say to the boys in our lives: “You don’t have to be angry to be strong. You don’t have to dominate to be respected. You don’t have to hate women to be a man.”

Let’s tell them: “You can cry and still be brave. You can nurture and still be powerful. You can be gentle and still be strong.”

Let’s begin the conversation with our sons—again, and again, and again—until they hear us. Until they believe us. Until they believe in themselves.

Childcare Won’t Be Fixed Until Moms and Dads Join Forces

PUBLISHED 6/5/2025 by and | UPDATED 6/11/2025 at 3:19 P.M. PT

The Trump administration would have you believe they’ll try anything to have more babies. Their proposed list of incentives include medals for mothers who have more than six children, classes to educate women about their menstrual cycles and special seats reserved in the Fulbright program for applicants with children. Anything, that is, except the glaringly obvious solutions: affordable, accessible childcare and paid parental leave.

If we want to secure policies that will benefit all parents, then we need to come together, breaking down the silos between those advocating for men and those advocating for women. After all, we want the same things: affordable childcare, paid leave and a living wage for all families.

‘Daddy’s Home’: Republican Paternalism Towards Women Exemplifies Punishment, Not Protection

PUBLISHED 2/12/2025 by

On the first day of his second term in office, Trump signed the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism” executive order, which claims to defend and protect women by asserting that, as a matter of U.S. policy, the existence of transgender people will not be recognized. Trump followed up on Feb. 5 with his “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order. These EOs join a long history of laws in the U.S. based on professed protection for women, which actually do the opposite.

While posturing as women’s protectors, Republican lawmakers ignore or inadequately address very real, substantiated and systemic threats to women, including in the intimate space of their own homes, where as many as one in four women experience domestic violence and more than three women are killed by husbands or boyfriends every day.

Women’s intelligence is insulted—and their autonomy further threatened—when the state asserts the intent to protect them from trumped-up threats that are overstated and insignificant in comparison to a spate of other much more common material, even mortal, threats to their lives and well-being.

The First, First Gentleman: Breaking More Than One Glass Ceiling

PUBLISHED 11/4/2024 by

First ladies, while unofficial in title, have been unofficially tasked with hosting state dinners, advocating for social and philanthropic causes, and managing the White House’s image, without ever getting paid or recognized the way they should be. It’s a microcosm of the way our society still places these expectations on women in domestic spaces. Even though this labor is essential, it is often taken for granted.

Now, imagine a man stepping into this role. If a first gentleman were to perform these duties, it might force the country to rethink why these responsibilities were so heavily feminized in the first place. And even more so, it might make people question why this type of labor—whether done in the White House or in everyday homes—has been undervalued for so long.

New Ad Creates ‘Permission Structure’ for Men to Support Harris

PUBLISHED 11/1/2024 by

Among the most memorable ads of the political season are a pair of 30-second spots with explicitly gendered themes featuring voiceovers from two of America’s most beloved movie stars. The ads each play on the idea of “permission structures,” the assumption that voters sometimes need to be given permission to vote for a candidate or party that is not popular with their social group.

During this election cycle, Democrats and Democratic-aligned groups seem finally to have figured out that they need to respond, in part by creating a special kind of permission structure for men to support them. Permission for men to vote for their values and conscience just might make a difference in what promises to be a very close election.

‘That’s My Dad!’: Helping Men Find Purpose in an Angry World

PUBLISHED 10/9/2024 by | UPDATED 10/22/2024 at 7:07 A.M. PT

Young men in the U.S. are in an existential crisis, and from even the most casual browsing of their online spaces, their anger and loneliness are obvious. For these male biological challenges, we need empathy and understanding. For the social constructions of masculinity, the way we raise boys and socialize men, we need a bold, new social project. As grandiose as it may sound, men are seeking purpose. 

(This essay is part of a Women & Democracy multimedia package focused on Gen Z and student voters. The future envisioned by young leaders is bright—it’s built on reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sustainability, freedom from violence and economic opportunity. Explore essays, a brand-new podcast, videos and more from some of your most loved [or soon to be!] influencers and writers, brought to you by Ms., DoSomething, the nonprofit that helps make volunteerism “cool,” and The Anthem Awards, the social impact arm of The Webbys.)

The ‘New’ Masculinity Is Actually 50 Years Old

PUBLISHED 9/6/2024 by

Since the presidential campaign shake-up in July, the national conversation about manhood has been abuzz with talk of a “new” masculinity, embodied by good, decent men like Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff. What’s actually new, though, is what’s coming into focus: the consequences of 50 years of men’s hard work to redefine manhood.

A growing number of men across all races and ethnicities have followed women in working to prevent domestic and sexual violence, protect reproductive rights and redefine and transform traditional ideas about manhood, fatherhood and brotherhood. Men are rejecting a fixed definition of masculinity and replacing it with an emotionally rich expression of masculinities.