Small Strokes Big Oaks

I spend a lot of time on here (and elsewhere) talking about how women – particularly wives – are portrayed in the media. What I haven’t covered in a while is how the media portrays husbands. Sarah Haskins did a nice job of covering it a few years ago, and I refer to this video often:

Husbands and dads aren’t portrayed much better in media than wives and mothers are, it seems. Most often, doofus dads just can’t handle childcare or housework, and helper husbands have to be asked to do work around the house. And they just can’t seem to get it done as well as a woman can.

According to AdWeek, though, these dads are fighting back against advertising-related bad press:

When it comes to their talents and abilities at raising children, or handling virtually anything having to do with the household, dads are feeling a lack of respect. A report this past March from PR firm Edelman and The Parenting Group, publisher of Parenting and Babytalk, found that 66 percent of fathers think there is an “anti-dad societal bias.” Among dads with children under the age of 2, that number spikes to 82 percent.

One need to look no further than a controversial diaper ad to see their point.

When Huggies’ “Dad Test” campaign, featuring flummoxed fathers attempting to care for their newborns, hit the airwaves, dads decided enough was enough. The backlash was swift, and a wave of negative reaction stained the brand’s Facebook page like spit-up on a cashmere cardigan. One faction of fathers even teamed with Change.org to petition Huggies parent Kimberly-Clark Corp. to stop running ads portraying dads as incompetent.

It is clear that the fathers of today want the world to know they have moved beyond the stereotypical image of the “doofus dad.” They want to be seen as nap time ninjas, professional purveyors of PB&J and diaper-wielding demigods—ones who also happen to shop for those diapers.

Huggies executives listened and attempted to clean up the mess by withdrawing the dad-bashing ads.

I think it’s great that dads are fighting back. They absolutely deserve more respect than they get, and they are seeing results from their protests. When we talk about gendered roles within the family, we cannot ignore the fact that dads and husbands get a bad rap, too. Unfortunately, we do see a lot of advertisements that portray family men in a bad light, and even more unfortunate, when we see doofus dads and helper husbands in other forms of media – like television or movies – they are often just one side of a terribly portrayed couple. Helper husbands are usually coupled with nagging wives who just get frustrated at their man-child’s inability to do anything to help out around the house. Great portrayals of dads and husbands, however, usually also come with a great portrayal of a wife and mother. I suppose this makes sense; a couple is only as good as the two people in it, and nagging wife often leads to helper husband because a nagging wife doesn’t seem to let her husband do much of anything around the house.

So, in short, it’s great that dads are having some success with fighting back against the media. On the flip side, though, we still have a long way to go. There still are not enough portrayals of great, equally partnered families in the media, and advertisers still seem to think that it’s a really good marketing tactic to make husbands and wives fit into these age-old stereotypes.

Photo Credit: Sam Howzit