Coming out of the Shed: Reflections on Men and Fathers

This paper is based upon a keynote address I delivered to the 2000 Australian Family Therapy Conference. The address invited conference participants to reflect on the functional or 'provider' roles so often assigned to men as partners and fathers. I link socio-historical observations about the construction of gender-based roles, with personal experiences of three generations of men from my own family of origin. I suggest that a continuing division of roles along gendered lines is not serving men well. Nor does it offer many benefits to men's female partners or their children. Practices within family law provide one illustration of persistent gender-laden attitudes that, in the light of solid experimental evidence on men and fathering over the past twenty years, need to be challenged. Therapists, too, are challenged to reflect on how to engage men in ways that avoid the reinforcement of gender stereotypes. (author abstract)