Q4ALL: How do you define/conceptualize "daddy issues," what are "daddy issues" all about, what causes them, what are their negative consequences, and how can they be avoided?

I spoke to my friend who is the mother of a young daughter.

I said that raising a daughter is easier than raising a son because:

• a man needs to successfully pursue or else they will be a loser, whereas (generally) a woman will simply be pursued no matter what

• a man needs to fit the masculine mold: hit the gym, approach, be confident, achieve, be a badass, etc. (if he is simply idle/lazy/passive, or he simmers in a vat of estrogen his whole youth, or both, then he will be a sexual failure)

• on the other hand, a woman can be a tomboy or a feminine girly-girl or something in between...there's no huge pressure...she doesn't have to fit one mold (the way a man does) to be successful (obviously some paths/habits/priorities are better than others, but as long as you have a vagina and are fairly attractive then you will be approached, and nobody cares that much how masculine/feminine you are in various respects...you have leeway)

In other words, there is enormous intervention required for males to guard against the (A) "simmering in a vat of estrogen" and/or (B) passivity phenomena that will destroy a man, whereas there is a lot more leeway and a lot less risk for women in terms of whether they will be sexually successful and so on.

My friend (the mother of the daughter) responded that "daddy issues" are a huge risk for young girls.

In that case, "daddy issues" would be the female counterpart (in terms of risk) to the major (A)/(B) risks that threaten males that I mentioned above.

How do you define/conceptualize "daddy issues," what are "daddy issues" all about, what causes them, what are their negative consequences, and how can they be avoided?

I want to express some concerns/thoughts I have about the whole idea of "daddy issues":

• I'm extremely skeptical (though open-minded) about all-things-Freudian, because I'm a scientifically-minded person, and the stories that Freud tells about how parental relationships influence our lives require evidentiary support

• allegedly parents have little influence on children, which I find disturbingly counterintuitive, and I understand that this goes against my points above about how parental intervention can shape a young man's development and change its course (consider something as straightforward as introducing them to the gym, which has to have an effect, and yet...)

• I do happen to know some three women with awful relationships with their fathers who are highly promiscuous, but it's an n=3 sample-size, so I would really like to see science on this topic (there is the joke in Family Guy where Quagmire goes to a party and asks various women, "What's your relationship like with your father?" in order to find the ones with "daddy issues" whom he can fuck, and I imagine that there is a lot of truth in this joke, but intuition is far from science)

Edit: I have no idea whether this study means anything. Or what it means.