Introduction

This chapter explores one of the most visible and controversial aspects of fathering today – the emergence of many men who seek to articulate claims as fathers. It concentrates on the UK with a limited exploration of international developments. The chapter is based mainly on an exploration of the academic literature, although a survey of websites conducted specifically for the chapter does inform some of the thinking. As other chapters have done, it draws briefly from the author's own research, which is explored in more depth in Chapters Nine and Ten.

Categorising the politics of masculinity: where do fathers fit?

A number of writers have constructed typologies of masculinity politics as expressed in social movements (see Featherstone et al, 2007: 26-8). Clatterbaugh (1990) identifies the following: pro-feminist men (both liberal and radical versions); men's rights approaches that see men as having lost out to feminism; conservative men arguing for continuity with ‘traditional’ models of masculinity; men in search of spiritual growth (often called mythopoetic); and socialist men and those gay and Black men who emphasise inequalities between men. Connell (1996) suggests the following: masculinity therapy; the defence of patriarchy; queer politics; and transformative politics. Messner (1997) has constructed a model of ‘the terrain of the politics of masculinity’. This can be used as a tool to assess the politics of groupings and interventions along the following axes: whether they are concerned with the institutional privileges of men, the costs of masculinity, or differences between men.

Attempts at categorisation are helpful and, in particular, Messner's has been usefully employed (see, for example, Scourfield and Drakeford, 2002, on government policies in the UK). However, as we will see in our discussion of a piece of research with young Black and minority ethnic fathers in the public law field (Featherstone and White, 2006), and in Chapter Nine on practice interventions, there is messiness and complexity attached to what fathers say and do, and what workers say and do. This is not captured in neat typologies, although they do serve to clarify key themes.