Going to hell in a festive handcart

Here is a piece I wrote about the Asda and Morrisons Christmas adverts for the Fatherhood Institute website.

Have yourself a sexist little Christmas? 

Why are two of our biggest supermarket chains turning gender equality back 40 years in their Christmas adverts this year? Asda and Morrisons both portray mothers running around like demented scullery maids for weeks on end as they get ready for the festivities. Stocking cupboards, buying and wrapping presents, writing Christmas cards, decorating trees, kitting the kids out in nativity costumes, wrestling with turkeys…you name it, the mums are in charge, and their task-lists are never-ending.

These selfless, saintly backbones of the family ask no reward for their festive domestic servitude, save for a fleeting moment of satisfaction as they feast on the sight of their over-fed, useless husbands, children and assorted family members snoring contentedly, semi-comatose in a post-prandial haze on Christmas afternoon, twixt Queen’s Speech and an evening of charades. You see – it’ll be worth all the effort in the end, girls!

Where are the fathers in these outmoded, cliché-ridden depictions of 21st century domestic bliss? They’re in there, but only as bit players – carving the turkey, plugging in the fairy lights, staring incompetently as their better halves choose the right tree. At their most visible, they exist simply to display a childlike ignorance of the mums’ true sacrifice. Hence at the end of the Asda film we see mum finally get to sit down with a glass of wine after 2 months’ graft, as dad delivers the final, inevitable punchline: ‘What’s for tea, love?’.

Without wishing to be too ‘bah humbug’ about this, let’s pause to think for a moment about the realities of UK family life. Research shows that between the late 1960s and 2004 the time British men spent on domestic work (including cooking and shopping) rose from 90 minutes to 148 minutes per day, while women’s dropped from 369 minutes to 280 minutes. It’s likely that since then, the figures have continued to converge. Survey after survey shows that both men and women want a better work-life balance, and more sharing of their earning and caring responsibilities.

No, men are not yet matching the time women devote to domestic work, but we know they’re on their way – just as we know that women are increasingly going out to work, but are still more likely to work in less-than-full-time jobs – and that when they do work full-time, they tend to work in more family-friendly roles, with shorter working hours and commutes.

So why would the supermarkets choose, in the context of this convergence, to portray the average British family in such a polarised way, filling Britain’s homes for the next month with images of women revelling in unpaid domestic drudgery, pathetically grateful for the chance to labour unrewarded in the face of their loved ones’ ignorance and sloth? Presumably because this is what the advertising executives’ focus groups tell them we want to watch.

In fact, both men and women seem to have been annoyed by the Asda advert in particular. The Advertising Standards Authority has launched a formal investigation after more than 190 people complained, and more than 100 people have signed an online petition against it. Small numbers, perhaps, but given people’s general apathy about making complaints – especially about what might easily be dismissed as a harmless bit of fun – indicative that the public is growing to expect more of its big household brands, perhaps.

In its ‘Live well for less’ campaign Sainsbury’s has certainly shown that it’s possible to warm the cockles of our hearts with depictions of everyday, involved fatherhood. And with its snow-people John Lewis has again found an engaging way to portray the spirit of Christmas without resorting to cliché (although mightn’t it have been more interesting if it had been her ‘going the extra mile’ to find a gift for him?). Even Argos’ blue shopping aliens  present a pretty even-handed reflection of mums and dads getting ready for the festivities.

By contrast, Asda and Morrisons’ mum-centric dystopias feel like a depressing and much-needed reminder that for all the progress we’ve made towards gender equality since the 1960s, our cultural inertia around motherhood and fatherhood remains scarily deep-seated. In most British families, mums, dads and other family members will be working together to prepare for and enjoy the festivities. Let’s not allow the likes of Saatchi and Saatchi fool us into thinking otherwise!

I've just had another look at this piece from Marketing Week, in which Asda CEO Andy Clarke stressed that his company hadn't aimed to cause any offence.

Check out the comments - not from Joe Public, mark you, but the sophisticated and engaged marketing professionals on whom British industry relies for cutting edge analysis and customer insight.

What else is there to say? We're all going to hell in a handcart. Merry bloody Christmas!!

Behind every great Christmas...there's a sexist advert

It was inevitable, I suppose. After P&G's Olympic 'mums single-handedly nurtured all our athletes' campaign, here's Asda's attempt to set us back 40 years by claiming that great Christmases are all down to...you guessed it...those sanctified souls who gave birth to us.

This advert is so dreadful, the first time I saw it I thought it was a spoof. It was clearly created by some maverick 1970s advertising executive who's just woken up after a 40-year drugs binge, hellbent on sending women straight back where they belong - the kitchen, so they can rustle him up a cheese toastie and Party Seven. Mindboggling in its awfulness.

Mothers among you will already, of course, be too busy ensuring the continuation of capitalism by endlessly, selflessly SHOPPING or otherwise preparing for the festivities, to have time to watch it. Gracious, a whole 1'01 of not stocking up on party platters, positioning scented candles or anticipating your loved-ones' every need? I think not, my lovelies!

Which leaves the rest of us parents (the feckless ones who, no matter how hard we try, just can't multi-task, remember us?) to put our feet up - AGAIN - and enjoy this flashback to simpler times.

Please God let's object to this nonsense, and get whoever conceived of it the sack. Sign the petition here. 

Rupert Everett, gay dads...and life as a little pink gladiator

Gay dads – good or bad thing? Silly question? Well following Rupert Everett's comments in the Sunday Times, this week the media has dared to ask it.

Taking part in a phone-in on Kaye Adams’ morning show on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, I found myself flailing in a sea of anti-gay-dad sentiment, courtesy of a succession of callers for whom Mr Everett’s unease about children being brought up by two men seems eminently sensible.

I did my best, ably assisted by a gay adoptive dad, the daughter of a lesbian couple, and Ms Adams herself, to make the point that it’s the quality of the parenting, not the gender (nor, dare I say it, sexuality) of the person delivering it, which matters.

This key insight - based, as pointed out by Patrick Strudwick in the Guardian, on a growing evidence base - only ever seems to come up in the media when a gay celebrity becomes a mum or dad, or makes a comment about gay parenting; or when there’s some kind of panic about lesbians having babies and the ‘death of the father’.

In fact, child development experts are increasingly clear that gender’s probably less important than we think in parenting - whether in a gay or straight context. Professor Joseph Pleck argued some time ago that if you’re looking for something uniquely male about the value of fathers’ parenting, for example, you’ll struggle to find it. Dads, like mums, are all different. What’s likely to be most important about all of them is their competent, confident, sensitive hands-on parenting from Day One.

So what? So while non-heterosexuals’ parenting may seem like something other, it in fact offers a springboard into an altogether bigger, more mainstream debate about gender in families (much needed in Scotland, if today's phone-in callers are anything to go by!).

Unfortunately, the media isn’t much interested in that. The TV and newspapers love nothing more than men being from Mars and women from Venus – a dichotomy that feeds effortlessly into pretty much all their coverage of family life (and most of the advertising that supports it). Mothers need to be soft, gentle, ‘natural’ parents…fathers harsh, awkward and ultimately…well, useless and a bit optional.

With that as the backdrop, it is of course fascinating to ponder how on Earth the gay version of parenthood (for there must, needless to say, only be one!) could possibly work, especially since lesbians all look like bikers and gay men just want to dance around to show tunes!

So until the media shifts from its simplistic and sensationalist stereotypes on gender, gay parents will carry on being cast to the lions from time to time – like little pink gladiators fighting the corner for modern, balanced and involved mother- and father-hood. Ah, life at the leading edge...Rupert, you just don't know what you're missing!

Why not 'proudly sponsor' dads too?

Now the Olympics is finished, does that mean an end to Procter & Gamble's horrid 'Proud Sponsor of Mums' campaign too? Please say yes!

Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea for an ad campaign. And it's as brilliantly executed as one might expect a huge international company, whose brands includes Fairy, Pampers, Max Factor, Ariel and Gillette, to produce. The mums' stories are great.

But come on guys, should a company of your size and reputation be so narrowly focused on mothers (presumably because research shows they're the ones who buy most of your stuff) that you'd miss such a big opportunity to also celebrate the many fathers and father-figures who work their fingers to the bone to help their children become Olympians? 

Saving fatherhood from the bureaucrats' airbrush

It's one thing picking to bits how dads are represented, as I try to do in this blog - but sometimes the problem is that they're not represented at all.

The Telegraph's story about Scotland's Ready Steady Baby leaflet is an example of where a public authority has taken the decision to airbrush fathers out of the picture altogether. Seeking to erase one of the two most clearly understood labels through which we make sense of family relationships is apparently justifiable in the name of equality for same-sex couples who have children.

Says who?! Certainly not the children. If you're a man or woman in a parental relationship with a child, that child knows you as some kind of dad or mum - regardless of what they call you and certainly regardless of your sexual orientation, or whether or not you live with and/or are in a relationship with the child's other parent or parents. Mums and dads are grown-ups who look after you and love you with all their heart. Some people have more than one mum, some have more than one dad - some have a collection of both. Many call them something different, but they know exactly who and what they are and mean. Unlike bureaucrats, kids get this stuff.

And in my experience, most families that involve same-sex parents (including my own) get it too. Of course we need to think carefully about how we use language, and there's no doubt that words like 'father', 'mother', 'mum' and 'dad' contain baggage and can be used to shore up 'traditional' modes of thinking.

But heaven save us from 'parent', that catch-all refuge from controversy fast-becoming the mot du jour of the dead-handed bureaucrats!

How to lose customers and offend half the world's parents in one easy lesson

Massive congratulations to Chris Routly, a daddy blogger from Pennsylvania whose petition against Huggies' demeaning 'Dad Test' advertising campaign forced Kimberly-Clark (Huggies' multinational owners) into an embarrassing turnaround.

The original campaign was based on the idea that Huggies nappies could withstand the ultimate test - that of being put on and taken off by fathers...who are of course completely incompetent fools.

Yes folks, an idea this sexist, patronising and ridiculous got through whatever processes exist at this huge international company, and was deemed perfectly ok to unleash on the unsuspecting consumers of America.

Thanks to floods of complaints and Mr Routly's petition, the company decided to adapt its campaign. You can read about the whole sorry tale in the Washington Post and on Mr Routly's own blog, Daddy Doctrines.

You really couldn't make this stuff up, could you?

My new favourite stuff

Sometimes you stumble across a website and it sends a shiver down your spine. Like you've turned a favourite corner. You're in the right place, in safe hands...they're talking your language.

A while ago it happened to me with Pink Stinks, Abi and Emma Moore's awesome campaign about the 'pinkification' of girlhood. Today it's happened again, as I've just found Crystal Smith's Achilles Effect, which argues for a similarly de-stereotyped vision of boyhood.

While I'm on this subject, if you haven't already done so, DO read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender, which sets out to debunk the supposed science behind sex differences. It's brilliant, and if I had my way it would be on the National Curriculum.

None of this is directly about fatherhood, of course - but then again it IS. As fathers (and mothers) we must navigate across oceans of gendered expectation, both of ourselves (informed by the representations of fatherhood we've grown up with) and of our children (through whom new, more inspiring representations will hopefully develop).

Resources like these are precious. They help us recalibrate our moral compasses as we wend our merry way...

Sticking to the formula - Daddy Daycare Episode 2

OK, so the second episode of Daddy Daycare was essentially the same as the first. We know the formula:

1. Start with a dramatic voiceover pointing out that mums do all the parenting work and dads are useless (this is the same for each episode…just in case anyone were to forget exactly how terrible men are at all this stuff). 
2. Meet the three dads who are going to be ‘knocked into shape’ – in this episode, one who’s a workaholic, another who doesn’t see nappy-changing as his role, and a third who has five children and can’t cope with their behaviour. 
3. Meet the long-suffering mothers of their children, and the all-female staff of the nursery where the men will work for a week. 
4. Light the blue touch-paper and gaze in awe as the men get everything wrong and prove that yes, men really are hopeless. 
5. Slowly, as the film progresses and the men get space to learn and practise, find glimpses of their ‘inner dad’ shining through. 

Let’s not forget the all-important ‘money shots’ though. This week there were two. One was father-of-five Grant crying his way home, realising how much he’s missed out on by dealing with his own children in too heavy-handed a fashion. The second, a moving conversation between the workaholic dad and one of the nursery workers, who had lost her child to leukaemia at the age of 4, prompting her to change careers so as to care for others’ children. The message – life is precious, don’t take it for granted, spend time with your kids rather than in the office.

So far so obvious. The Fatherhood Institute rightly points out that what’s so desperately lacking in this series is a sense of balance. We already know Episode 3 won’t redress that. Although it does hold out hope of yet more obnoxious stereotyping…one of the hapless victims looks set to be not just useless…but also gay!

Preparing to be unprepared

In stark contrast to Daddy Daycare, A Dad Is Born - also made by Love Productions, ironically enough - offered a sensitive examination of what happens when men become fathers. Kira Phillips' film followed several men as they waited for their babies to arrive, attended the birth and dealt with the first couple of weeks at home.

It was moving to watch the men's fear, their attempts to do their best for their partners and children, and the simple day-to-day caring that is so central to becoming a modern father.

Keeping the ship steady...being there...coping with being unable to take the pain away...feeling the love...thinking about what kind of dad you want to be...dealing with your partner's emotions...wondering how other dads feel...holding it all together...

Reading all the books in the world can't prepare you for new fatherhood - but what this lovely little film showed in spades is that dads need to be open to its hugeness. That's something we in the UK do little to encourage, with our icy-cold ideas about masculinity, our father-blind maternity services and our all-too-short paternity leave provision. High time we put all that right.

Daddy Daycare Episode 1: Lessons To Learn

The TV reviewers hated it. See, for example, Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent and John Crace in The Guardian. Lots of the viewers hated it, judging by last night's comments on Twitter. I hated it.

But I was taught always to focus on the positives - so let's think for a minute about what we can learn from the first episode of Channel 4's Daddy Daycare....

Lesson 1. Even though they're paid handsomely for what they do, TV production staff and commissioning editors are just as likely to get things wrong as bankers, politicians or anyone else. Daddy Daycare is not Love Productions' finest hour, and they probably know it.

Lesson 2. Although the broadcast media has the potential to shape and give voice to changes in our culture, most of the time it's deeply reactionary - which means we'd do well to spend a bit less time glued to its every pronouncement.

Lesson 3. If you're a father and are ever asked to feature in a TV documentary, think long and hard before you agree to it. You probably won't, as the researcher claims, be helping change people's perceptions of fathers, or establishing an exciting new narrative on fatherhood. Unless you're really convinced about the production team and what it's up to, remember Daddy Daycare, say 'no thanks' and go back to being the best dad you can be.

So you see, it wasn't so bad after all. The modernising of family life...mums' and dads' discovery of new and inspiring ways to share in the bringing up of happy children...it's all happening. Just not on Channel 4 from 9-10pm for the next three weeks.

Why Daddy Daycare will probably be very annoying

One of the likely flaws of Daddy Daycare, Channel 4's new series starting tonight, is that it will conflate too many issues and fail to address them sufficiently explicitly. Lumping them together, and simplifying things in order to maximise ratings, is likely to create a rather annoying viewing experience for anyone with even a passing interest in gender equality.

Here are some of the issues that underlie the 'dads are useless, mums know best' tone of this preview clip, for example:

• Our parental leave and other systems push women to do the lion's share of childcare and men to be breadwinners
• Mums (more likely to be working less-than-full-time) feel that dads (more likely to be working full-time) don't do enough at home
• Mums who work full-time (although 'full-time' in this context needs unpicking because full-time women's working hours and travelling distances tend to be shorter) feel that dads who work full-time don't do enough at home
• Some dads consider themselves ill-equipped, and/or lack the confidence, to look after children
• Some men revel in their 'inability' to look after children effectively (just as, for example, some women revel in their 'inability' to do maths, deal with technology etc)
• Some dads have relatively little access to their children and this can add to their sense of being marginal to parenting
• The childcare workforce is predominantly female
• The childcare workforce is generally underpaid and undervalued.

Can't wait to see the show...I hope to blog through the 3-part series, so follow this blog and also my Twitter account @homersmustdie.

Would YOU want to read about him?

I've never read a Joanna Trollope, and this poster hasn't done much to persuade me to change that. But given that this book is currently No. 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller list, presumably plenty of people saw this and felt moved to buy. Is it just me that finds this depressing?

Gird your loins...it's time for Daddy Daycare

Shivering in anticipation for Daddy Daycare, Channel 4's new series in which nine dads are sent on a crash-course in parenting at busy nurseries. We start next week at South London's Magic Roundabout nursery, where workaholic father-of-three Garry (38), reluctant dad-of-one Jay (39) and nervous father-to-be Stefan (26) join a staff made up entirely of single mums.

There's a point behind this show - a good proportion of British women feel their partners don't do enough childcare. (Incidentally, a good proportion of British men feel the same - they want to do more at home, but everything conspires to push them towards breadwinning, especially in the early years, all-too-often leaving them feeling on the margins of family life, rather than at the centre where they belong. Still, this is light entertainment TV, so let's put that to one side).

All the same, it goes without saying that the programme's methodology looks shockingly sexist. Just imagine a male equivalent...men think women don't bring in enough money - let's put a bunch of them in all-male workplaces and watch them do stuff for which they've had little or no training. Oil Rig Honeys, anyone?

It'll be a car crash, of course...but what type? A straightforward 'let's gawp at how useless men are' pile-up? Or a more subtle prang that cleverly plays on the viewer's preconceptions, showing in the end that maybe dads aren't so useless, and women so omniscient, after all? A nation waits with bated breath...

Revolution at The Daily Mirror...who knew?!

My most surprising discovery of the week has to be Jeff Brazier's column in The Daily Mirror.

It focuses on Jeff's role as a father of two boys, and at the end he answers readers' parenting questions - mums' as well as dads'. He comes across a loving, committed father, and from what I've seen his advice seems sound enough. His accounts of everyday life are peppered with celebrity gossip, of course - but as that's the world he inhabits, it feels natural he should write about it. And it's the side order rather than the main course - which is exactly what work should be for all of us!

This is the first time I've seen a British tabloid newspaper give a man space to be primarily a dad - and, most refreshingly, to give him the role of parenting 'expert'.

Would I be going too far if I were to herald this as a sign of cultural shift?

*No, I'm not a regular reader...I stumbled across it while searching for something else. Honestly! Well that's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

My best 'dadvert' of 2011

Check out this Sainsbury's advert - probably the least patronising I've seen on TV...it's a few months old now, but somebody just reminded me of it and it's definitely worth a mention.

Why's it so good? Well first, dad's in charge of the day-to-day stuff - he's an involved dad, not just a babysitter. Secondly, he's clearly a loving father, comfortable spending 'normal' time with his son, providing him with entertainment and lots of love and affection, and enjoying his company. And thirdly, when mum appears at the end of the advert (she may have been at work...maybe she's breadwinner...who knows...doesn't matter) she's NOT there to roll her eyes towards heaven at the state they've left the house in.

Doesn't sound like much, does it? But amazingly few adverts show dads like this. So good, it almost makes me want to shop at Sainsbury's...