Boston College publishes a male-positive study on the expanding role of fathers; Slate transforms it into a defamation of fatherhood entitled "Why Do Dads Lie on Surveys About Fatherhood?"

fishwish · 2010-06-18T18:53:19+00:00

The Families and Work Institute, for instance, puts fathers at three hours and mothers at 3.8 hours with kids under 13, while Census Bureau time-use surveys found that married men spend about 1.2 hours per weekday caring for children under age 6, while married women spend 2.6 hours on the same activity.

Self assessments of time use are bound to be hard to account for.

The selection pools for each of these studies are very different. First time fathers in the Boston area (which has a much higher level of income) is very different from the pool of all fathers.

The big question here is why does the slate author fail so hard at properly understanding how to read studies.

Godspiral · 2010-06-18T18:56:28+00:00

I wonder if that reporter has ever repeated that 1 in 4 women are raped. Not only is that statistic based on self reported answers, but the self reported opinion is actually ignored, and expanded with such questions as "did you ever have sex with someone you didn't want to because of drugs or alcohol"

koonat · 2010-06-18T21:06:20+00:00

Wow, this is pretty fucked up.

It's just hate-filled nonsense.

soomprimal · 2010-06-18T22:37:06+00:00

Here is the author's response to comments in the article:

Katherine Lewis I want to thank everyone who took the time to write a comment on this story. To me, this heated debate is a sign that the role of men in the home can indeed be a sore spot in our culture right now. Change is good, but it can also be painful. I suspect discussions like this will help us along the path (aside from the name calling -- I don't find that useful).

I'm surprised at the perception that this piece was an attack on men. I certainly didn't intend that -- if anything, I hoped to sympathetically portray the struggle of men for equality in home life. When I saw a preview of the Boston College study about a month ago, I was struck that it was the second recent study in which dads claimed to spend more time on child care than the benchmark surveys show. As I set out to explore why this was the case, I kept coming back to this revolutionary change in our society: the increasing importance of family life in male identity. And the many hurdles facing men who want to participate equally in raising their kids: societal pressure, workplace demands, gatekeeping moms, to name a few.

I decided to use the Boston College study as a jumping off point to explore our progress regarding gender roles and parenting. I wanted to make the point that what's significant is not that men lie (because everyone lies - women, dieters, marathoners) but what they are lying about and the direction of change. If men are inflating the time they spend on child care, it must be an important part of their self-image. As several commenters have astutely pointed out, this piece explores new hypotheses that might benefit from prospective validation. (For a simple summary of the BC study, you can see my About.com blog yesterday: http://workingmoms.about.com/b/2010/06/17/on-fathers-day-consider-dads-work-life-conflict.htm)

I know full well that there are many fathers who spend more than the 1.2 or 3 or 3.3 hours of child care cited in this piece on a given workday. My father did and my husband does regularly spend more than that. (Especially the week this piece came out.) I hope to write more about the fathers like them in future pieces, as well as at-home dads and part-time working dads. And to continue this dialogue!

Title	Boston College publishes a male-positive study on the expanding role of fathers; Slate transforms it into a defamation of fatherhood entitled "Why Do Dads Lie on Surveys About Fatherhood?"
Author	kloo2yoo
Upvotes	46
Comments	5
Date	June 18, 2010 3:08 PM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/cgfcl/boston_college_publishes_a_malepositive_study_on/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/boston-college-publishes-a-male-positive-study-on.1049044 https://theredarchive.com/post/1049044

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