Male Feminists Are Unicorns

"great dads" and inadequate moms--hearing hoofbeats and thinking unicorns, not horses?
I'm taking the liberty of crossposting some things I said on The Chicken because I think it's relevant here too. I had a definite "aha!" when I realized that being a "good father" is the default for a man who chooses to parent (and even some who are parents, but don't *parent*) while for a woman, the default is to not be good enough and to have to salvage oneself from a sort of fallen state. I thought about what the bare minimum is that our society requires from fathers, versus what it requires from mothers. I said over there:

"How often do you hear someone say "oh he's a great dad"? And how often do you hear a woman praised as a "great mom"? "Great dad" is the default for men who have children. It is something people say without really thinking about it like, "oh yeah he's a nice guy." A man has to actively transgress to become a "bad" father or "deadbeat dad" or for that matter even just not "good."

I hear women called a "great mom" a lot less often, even though there sure are a hell of a lot of women knocking themselves out on a daily basis doing the absolute best they can for their kids. I hear "she really loves being a mom" quite a bit, though. Think about this:

"He's a really great pianist."

"She really loves playing the piano."

Which one of those two is better at playing the piano, generally? We use the former construction for a pro, and the latter for a harmless amateur who will never really achieve anything like greatness. The way we talk about motherhood makes failure the default; the way we talk about fatherhood makes success the default."

And I tried to nail down a list of what society expects from parents of either sex:

" It seems like every guy I hear about who has kids is referred to as a "good dad" unless he outright killed some of them or is AWOL and doesn't pay support. As for "good mom"? HAH! Good luck! No one meets the standard for that. Well, maybe the Virgin Mary. But then again some people still scoff at her for being single and whisper behind her back about her son's parentage. Heh.

I'm not saying that men should be held to Virgin Mary type standards. But I AM saying that the bar seems to be laying on the ground for them whereas it's out of reach for women. Taking this another step, let's look at feminist type groups where women are critiquing the Virgin Mary motherhood standards. The bar for women is still pretty high, but slightly less so--say the troposphere instead of in the stratosphere. And the bar for men is a little bit higher. But it's like, three inches off the ground.

What does it take, generous version, to be a good mother in our society?

-Be available for the children whenever they need you.
-Make all the right medical, etc, decisions, where what's right is agreed upon by no one, ie, you're going to be wrong according to someone no matter what you do.
-Children must be well behaved, clean, and dressed in appropriate clothing--appropriate is subjective, yes, but that's part of the standards.
-Be a fountain of educational resources and enrichment, willing to answer questions about anything at any time.
-Be patient.
-Never show anger or frustration.
-Never get depressed or anxious.
-Cook nutritious foods.
-Keep the house clean.
-Keep your sexuality completely subdued and out of sight to all.
-Have enough money to buy everything the child needs and then some (we all know our society sees things like being on WIC as a moral shortfall, especially for mothers.)
-Have "child appropriate" language, conduct, etc, at pretty much all times.
-Not require very much, if any, personal time, privacy, leisure, or distraction.
-No smoking, drinking, drug use, etc.
-Be willing to die and/or experience pain for one's children without hesitation.
-Be available without fail or falter for all of childhood's most unpleasant episodes.
-Work if you're poor, stay home if you're not, or vice versa, or neither, or both, depending on the whim of society at this moment.
-Be a shining and pure example of good behavior, charity, kindness, religious piety or "spirituality," propriety, civility, citizenship, studiousness, work ethic, femininity, and patience.
-Have children who do not have birth defects, medical problems, mental illness, behavioral issues, poor grades, bad attitude, or BO, because we "know" in any case, those things usually are the fault of poor life decisions or bad parenting, and mothers are the only parents held to it.

There's more, much more. But, what does it take to be a "good father"?

-Ejaculate.
-Don't beat your wife, or at least give it up and be contrite.
-Try not to abuse drugs or alcohol to the extent that it makes you behave badly on a regular basis.
-Don't beat your children (unless your social or religious upbringing says they deserve it.)
-Don't molest anyone.
-Stick to only minor felonies and misdemeanors if you need to commit crimes. (Come on, we all have heard someone gush that a guy just convicted of assault "was a great dad.")
-Try to be pleasant when your children approach you.
-Don't yell and get impatient ALL the time.
-Be available for playtime, occassionally.
-Be masculine.
-Pay for stuff if you have money.
-Try to go hang out at home every once in a while.

And honestly if a man does things other than play with the kid (say diapers), is patient and tolerant, is actually truly interested in what a child is saying, is available and listens and is loyal, it's seen as all bonus points, making him an even better dad. And if he goes on to accomplish anything else from the "mom" list, such as cleaning or cooking or being religious or giving up personal leisure time, he's likely to be ridiculed as somehow "sissy."

And men are never taken to tax for whether or not a child is vaccinated or circumcised or public schooled or homeschooled, never taken to tax for swearing, his sexuality is generally not scrutinized unless he's gay in which case much of the scrutiny is due to misogynistic homophobia to start with. And if a child has ADHD, a cleft palate, or flunks high school, no one says it was because the father drank before impregnating the mother and thus passed on deformed sperm, no one says it's because the father works too much and doesn't have time to help with homework, no one says it's because the father wished for a miscarriage early in pregnancy.

And fathers can smoke, drink, and use whatever drugs are considered socially acceptable with utter impunity. And they can leave their families for selfish reasons, put down the women in their lives constantly, and act like entitled gits and they can STILL be a "good dad."

The more I thought about it, the more it made me think of unicorns. We want to believe men are good, because the alternative is too upsetting, so we lower the bar so low it's scraping the dirt. Then practically every man is a "good dad" but women are still always seen as falling short.

I am thinking about it more and I think the standards for women as mothers are stratospheric even among feminists. Not in the sense of having to tow any particular parenting party line, as it may be elsewhere, but in the sense that a woman could always do more and better, whereas a man is a winner just for showing up. Much like the idea that any man who tries to be a feminist must be one, a fabled unicorn for us to celebrate.

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