Manning Up to be a Good Father: Masculinity and United States Responsible Fatherhood Policy

• In Event: 537 - Regular Session. Masculinities and Intersectionality

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data from a two-year study of a United States federally funded responsible fatherhood program, including in-depth interviews and focus groups with 70 participating fathers and 10 staff, this paper analyzes how responsible fatherhood initiatives utilize masculinity—most notably through the trope of “manning up”—as a tool to shape disadvantaged men’s ideas of good fathering. I show how references to masculinity are strategic attempts to modify the behavior of predominantly low-income men of color to encourage educational attainment, employment, and direct parental involvement. As a case of how masculinity can be politically constructed as a social mechanism that represses irresponsible family behavior rather than an innate driving force of men’s irresponsibility that must be harnessed, this analysis reveals how references to “manning up” demonstrate the continuing articulation of class, race, and gender in political attempts to shape men’s paternal identity and behavior. I show how addressing men as fathers who provide direct care for their children, specifically as a way to be masculine, has become a strategic way for welfare policy to address them as potential wage earners. I ultimately argue that this strategy reflects an important shift in the gender regime of the U.S. welfare state from an approach focused on targeting men as fathers to one focused on targeting fathers as men.

Author

• Jennifer Randles, California State University-Fresno