Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What about the dads?
I found it very interesting that Dr. Kindlon, himself a father of two daughters, chooses to focus an entire chapter of the book on the impact of close relationships between fathers and daughters on the development of these "alpha girls." Kindlon claims that "closer relationships exist today between fathers and daughters than have existed in the past, and this has had a profound impact on the way many girls think and feel, how they interact with the world, and what they want and expect from life" (31). Kindlon goes on to cite many examples of girls who claim to emulate their fathers in ways ranging from shared interests to future career paths, and makes the case that these alpha girls have picked up "masculine traits" from these father-daughter interactions. He grounds this case in examples of physical play that fathers engage in with their children, the interest that many fathers take in their daughters' athletic ability, and cases in which fathers and daughters build radios together, to name only a few of the anecdotes and studies that Kindlon references. The result of these relationships, Kindlon claims, is that these girls adopt traits from both parents, resulting in a balance of the traditionally masculine and the traditionally feminine. While I cannot generalize across all of our classrooms--or even across all of the students in my own classroom--I know that many of my students (boys and girls) live in homes where their father is not present. How does this affect the potential of my female students to become alpha girls? How crucial do you think a father's involvement (or really, any parent's involvement) is to the success of these girls? How can a mother or grandmother step in to give these girls what they need if a father is not present? And finally, if you feel that exposure to and cultivation of these "masculine" traits is necessary for a girl's success, how can we as teachers try to fill these gaps within the classroom?
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This prompt has me thinking about the impact of "nature" on a person's development. Interactions, among all people, lead to varied outcomes. There is no question, then, that a father-daughter interaction would lead to both some positive and some negative effects. Despite the outcomes, I truly believe that children benefit from interaction with both parents whenever possible.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, respectfully, with Dr. Kindlon that father-daughter interactions breed "masculine" traits. In fact, when I think about my interactions with my own father, I fondly remember daddy-daughter dinner dates, trips to the theatre and community service projects. My father taught me the importance of being treated well by men and also about giving back to those less fortunate. While he did not impart explicitly masculine traits as he did with my athletic brother, he supported me in my love of theatre and arts. That being said, I realize that my interactions with my father did provide me with a completely different experience from the experience I had with my mother, and both have proven useful in pushing me to succeed.
As for my students, many of them, like yours Millie, do not have fathers or do not see their fathers. Although the lack of a father figure might be detrimental emotionally, I do not think this lack of male presence deters females from their potential to become an alpha girl. In fact, it might make some of them stronger. If a female student can see strong female figures in her own life, she can aspire to become even stronger and even better. Teachers, therefore, should serve as role models in their classrooms and inform female students of the opportunities available to them.
Katie Packer
What a loaded argument he seems to have--that the most successful girls can thank their fathers for providing the masculine qualities that have allowed them to achieve. Why do being athletic, intelligent, and motivated have to be masculine traits? How absolutely absurd that we've just credited our most successful women to, well, men!
ReplyDeleteGranted, I have not read this book. Am I missing something here? What do these prevalent examples reveal about Kindoln's biases and assumptions? Has he not argued that the success of young women necessarily depends upon a man's influence?
Is anyone else upset about this?
Chloe
I think it is easy to misconstrue what Kindlon is saying in this chapter. I don't think that he is implying that men are passing innate male traits onto their daughters; rather, they are passing traits that society has traditionally cultivated in men onto their daughters. The newfound investment of fathers in cultivating girls who are to become whatever they want means that they prepare them for the world in a way men have traditionally prepared their sons. They try to cultivate traits and expectations that society had traditionally reserved for me. Kindlon isn't arguing that these traits such as athleticism, intelligence and motivation aren't naturally present in women. He simply argues that men are beginning to see these common traits in their daughters as socially acceptable and that, in many cases, this has caused men to have closer relationships to their daughters. He also discusses later in the book that changing gender roles and the increasing presence of some fathers in the home has also led to simply led to a more normalized and frequent interaction between father and child. This time together probably also causes stronger relationships.
ReplyDeleteWhile Kindlon does use sports as an example, he isn't necessarily saying that men are passing on their athleticism. Rather, he talks about how men coaching their daughter's teams invest a sense of intensity and competition that they might not have thought so mainstream fifty years ago. These new relationships, in many ways, are a result of society's shifts, which were mostly caused by strong and determined women. These shifts have in turn aided in the development of the alpha girl who may have a particularly close relationship with her father.
Additionally, when thinking about the communities we teach in, it seems to me that it is the complex family structure, rather than the lack of father in particular that most affects our girls. I think a major point of Kindlon is that alpha girls have good relationships with both of their parents. He seems to imply that this causes a sense of stability and reassurance which has a positive effect on self esteem, which often correlates to ambition, motivation and ultimately, success. Many of the girls in my class live in homes without parents and/or homes that are constantly mutating in terms of guardians, siblings etc. I wonder how this relative instability,in particular the constant building and severing of relationships with familial adults might correlate with self esteem. I already see it affecting academics in many of my students, who are unable to find an adult to help them with their homework or even feed them breakfast in the morning. This leads me to think that it is not necessarily the absence of fathers but rather the absence of stable relationships that might be the biggest danger for our girls.
I disagree with the idea that a strong father-daughter relationship makes a better Alpha Girl. I would believe that a girl growing up with a strong relationship with her mother would make a better Alpha Girl. This brings to mind a strong working single mother, who sets that example of what a woman can achieve. My mother was a single mother, and following my parents divorce I grew a lot closer to my mother. Her example showed me what I could strive to be through watching and observing her. I was just rubbed a little raw with the idea that girls try to emulate their fathers, as though these Alpha Girls are really trying to be male. That bothers me. I don't think thats the case at all.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that any girl NEEDS to have a father in order to have the traits of an alpha girl. I don't believe that these characteristics, traditionally associated with men, belong to men, can only be passed down by them, or that any woman that possesses them is trying to emulate men. Still, we talk a lot about role models (being the model of behavior). I truly believe that many of the boys I have in my classroom would be very different if they had a consistent father figure in their lives that modeled what it means to be "a man" (i.e. respectful of others, self-controlled, hard-working). Just to be clear, I am in no way saying that these traits are only held by men. I just believe that having a man show that these traits are normal would help many of our young men. Just like how having a successful African-American teacher in front of African-American students might add a little extra to students' perceptions of what is possible, having a man model these for the boys might have the same type of effect.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, I don't feel like the girls in my classroom need a father to teach them how to be motivated, athletic, or any of the other traits attributed to an alpha girl. However, what extra benefit might an excellent father or other male role model have for those girls? I always wondered if that person might be able to show girls what they should expect in a man in terms of how they should be treated, or how a respectable man behaves around or with women.
I realize the responders on this blog are mostly female, so I don't know how these thoughts will sit. I hope it's clear that I don't think men have a monopoly on these "masculine" traits. I'm simply wondering if having a positive male role model has some added benefit for the girls in some other way that women might not be able to, because I believe they do for boys.