Episode 045: No More Mouse Cursor

This week’s episode covers some of the awesome stories written by other fathers around the internets for the week leading up to February 10th, 2013: Kids Challenging Gender Barriers, One Pair of Batman Undies at a Time / Am I A Helicopter Parent?

The video does have a special ending. Check out the audio only version of this episode above.

Also we missed an s-bomb around 10:45 so, you know, HIDE YO KIDS.

New correlational research suggests that dads who think a woman’s place is in the home might be influencing their daughters to stay home as well.

LiveScience reports today that dads who share household chores and have equal-rightsy feelings about women in the workplace create daughters who tend to have more workplace ambition.

The New York Times‘ Stephanie Clifford did a great job discussing Mattel’s new move to appeal – not only to daughters, but also their fathers – with new Barbie construction sets.

The Mega Bloks Build N’ Style sets, launching 12/12/12 (creative!) will give children the opportunity to do something with Barbie that they couldn’t before – build Barbie’s mansion (relatively) brick-by-brick.

Chad Sapieha wants his daughter to see some positive female role models in the video game universe.

Since we’re professionals at the discourse on gender, we can all agree that the representation and design of female video game characters since the industry started has been – well, unreal. Helpless princesses and schoolgirly fighters are the norm, and until recently, the only female a gal could look up to in the video game world was Metroid‘s Samus Aran (though fans may mention the weird strip-tease endings).

Sapieha notes that he didn’t give much thought to female video game characters until his daughter was born. Now that he’s having conversations about gaming with his daughter, he made a list of ten female game characters that he’s not ashamed to show his daughter.

(This article was reprinted by The Good Men Project and The Huffington Post)

I can’t imagine that any dad is entirely comfortable taking their daughter underwear shopping. Blogger Jim Higley did a great article back in April about taking his older daughter on shopping “dates” to Victoria’s Secret, and Higley really conveyed that wonderful, uncomfortable panic that can overcome a dad who’s forced to stand too long in the lingerie and unmentionables section.

While moms have their own unique on-the-job difficulties, I know way too many dads who are perpetually nervous about unwittingly coming across as a pervert or a pedophile, thanks to stupid societal prejudices about the perceived dangers of men interacting with children. And, though I disagree with all of those stereotypes, I will admit – when I linger in the girls’ underwear section at Target, my personal levels of social anxiety go off the charts.

Fortunately, unlike Higley, at the moment, I’m getting off fairly easily when it comes to taking my daughter underwear shopping. She’s only five years old, so I’m (hopefully) years away from flop-sweating and avoiding eye contact while I hold a purse next to the Victoria’s Secret changing rooms in the mall. Right now, we just go to Target or Kohl’s, she sees a six-pack of underwear with her favorite characters on it, I toss it in the cart, and we’re good to go. Character underwear makes undergarment shopping super-easy and predictable for the parents of young children.

Or so I thought.

Nils Pickert’s 5-year-old son likes to wear dresses and skirts. In show of solidarity, Pickert started wearing them too. “Yes, I am one of those fathers who are trying to raise his children with gender equality. I’m not one of those pseudo-intellectual daddies that rambles on about studying gender justice, and then, as soon as the child is born, falls back into the comfortable and clichéd gender roles.”

That’s pretty badass.

Julie Samrick, of BlogHer, gets it. In light of the passing of Andy Griffith, Samrick thinks about how fathers on television are unfairly being portrayed as inferior, boorish adolescents. We said it years ago, and we’ll say it again: dads aren’t being represented well. And unfortunately, the trend isn’t over.

Samrick tells us why this is important: “According to a recent report in The New York Times, one of the strongest reasons women aren’t getting married today is because they don’t think men are as reliable as they used to be. The messages these women get day in and day out make this a sad, but understandable, reality in their minds.”