Backlash Men’s Movements Part 2: (Real) Fathers 4 Justice, Hypermasculinity and Fathers as Superheroes

Abstract

Chapter 6 and this chapter critically examine backlash men’s movements, especially fathers’ rights groups and the politics of fatherhood. Both chapters are based on in-depth, qualitative analysis of interviews with members of (Real) Fathers 4 Justice. This chapter explores (R)F4J’s construction of ‘hypermasculinity’; the associated idea of the ‘father as superhero’, and interviewees’ constructions of ‘bad fathers’ and ‘bad mothers’. ‘Conservative’ crisis-of-masculinity themes were explicitly articulated through hypermasculinity, where notions of men’s victimhood were prominent. The findings suggest that ‘softer’ bourgeois-rational and new man/new father masculinities exist in an uneasy tension with aggressive hypermasculinity. Further, all three masculinities are argued to be problematic, each reinforcing existing power-laden gendered binaries. All three conceptions of fatherhood are also limited in their potential to revision dominant gendered identities.