Myriam Chatot is a sociologist working on family, gender, and health, affiliated with the Centre Max Weber in Lyon. Marine Quennehen is a sociologist focusing on family, gender, and prison, based at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Families and Sexualities at the Catholic University of Louvain.
Their book, “Being a feminist dad: mission impossible?”1, presents a central observation: there is a disconnect between perceived changes in how involved modern dads are, and a reality that remains deeply unequal.2
That disconnect stems partly from shifting reference points. Men compare themselves to their own fathers, relative to whom they are indeed much more present. But sociologists, feminists, and many women measure fathers’ involvement against that of mothers – who still bear the bulk of family responsibilities.
How can we acknowledge the efforts being made without obscuring the work that remains? Do the mainstream discourses around involved fatherhood strip it of its feminist content? Can institutions help us move beyond an exclusively two-person model of parenting? In this interview for The Fifth Wave, the researchers reflect on the obstacles still standing in the way of true feminist fatherhood.
Despite talk of significant shifts in fatherhood, you note that the time fathers actually spend with their children hasn’t increased all that much. And even when it is more evenly distributed, qualitative studies reveal persistent knowledge gaps within couples – dads can be very present yet shoulder little to none of the mental load.
Should we move the debate away from the notion of ‘involved fatherhood’ toward something more explicit, like ‘competent’ or ‘capable fatherhood’?
Marine Quennehen: The question would quickly become who gets to define what a “capable” or “competent” father is. If men define themselves as such, we’re back to the same problem: they may be more capable than their grandfathers, but they’re not necessarily as capable as their partners.
We’d need to clarify expectations: as sociologist Michèle Ferrand famously showed, being competent isn’t just about giving a bottle, but knowing the right amount of formula, how to wash, sterilise, and put away the bottle. Adding new categories without clear content risks leading to purely cosmetic change.
Myriam Chatot: When I hear “capable father,” I think of autonomy. That’s what emerged from my interviews with fathers on full-time parental leave: being alone with their child forces them into responsibility and self-sufficiency. Each couple can then set its own standards as to what being autonomously capable looks like.
As we argue in the book, the norms of “good parenting” are shaped by institutions and the upper-middle class. The risk with “capable father” is therefore also that it could become another way to stigmatise working-class fathers.
Because if these fathers are deemed “not capable,” it implies they need re-education, that programs must be put in place – when in reality, their limited involvement often stems from lack of time, economic resources, or cultural capital.
Marine Quennehen: The key is that fathers feel able to act, to care for a child without their partner’s oversight. The notion of autonomy helps confronts the reality of a fatherhood that happens mostly alongside the mother, the one really giving the instructions.
The language of education comes up a lot in the book: the “bad student strategy” [i.e., weaponised incompetence], women’s role as “transmitting parental knowledge”. There’s a kind of infantilization of men as attending “the school of parenting”.
Yet these same men routinely highlight their professional competence. They don’t see the contradiction between their infantilization at home and their autonomy at work. It’s a strange dissonance.
M.C.: It’s an inferiority that’s fully compatible with their masculinity because it’s tied to tasks themselves perceived as inferior.
A study from a few years ago on domestic chores in the military showed that these tasks were assigned to the lowest-ranking conscripts, those at the bottom of the hierarchy. When we had mandatory military service, that means we were teaching entire generations of young men that housework is degrading, uninteresting – and that it’s therefore only natural for women and those deemed inferior to be assigned to it.
So they understand there’s no prestige in these tasks. But this perception can also benefit men who do invest heavily in the private sphere: they are praised as heroes for caring about something others consider secondary.
You write that some discourses “capitalise on fatherhood,” making the subject increasingly consensual while erasing its feminist political dimension. But at the same time, isn’t that the inevitable fate of any social movement: as it becomes more mainstream, it gets diluted? Isn’t it still a feminist victory, regardless of whether it’s acknowledged as such?
M.Q.: It’s always positive that fatherhood is gaining importance. But outside certain social circles, I’m pessimistic about how widespread this consensus really is. Looking at the comments under recent articles about our work… There’s still massive resistance. Even when attitudes do shift, men are reluctant to call themselves “feminist fathers” or even feminists. The word is seen as scary.
There are notable individual changes. Some fathers adjust their careers, have real conversations with their partners about equitable parenting. But at the macro level, deep change is much slower.
M.C.: Feminist struggles have secured major victories in this respect, that’s undeniable. It’s now widely accepted that men should be more involved in the home. But what does “more” actually mean? That’s the question our book explores.
It looks like politics also has that kind of ‘flattening’ effect on the fight for equal parenting.
M.C.: Absolutely. One thing we don’t discuss in the book is the 2014 French parental leave reform, which reserved part of the allotted leave for the second parent. It was passed as part of the law on real equality between women and men, and hailed as a revolutionary measure that was going to change everything.
But when you look at parliamentary debates, the arguments revolved mostly around work. Supporters of the reform wanted to encourage women to return to the workforce earlier; opponents wanted to protect businesses and men’s role as breadwinners.
Either way, the well-being of parents and children, and factors that influence it like perinatal mental health, was barely considered. The central assumption was that both parents’ primary commitment should always be work, and that nothing should disrupt the economic status quo.
And by the way, unlike the German reform which led to 20% of fathers taking leave from a prior 3%, the French version had negligible effects.
For more info on this reform, see my analysis of why it failed:
The book notes that the perspectives of children themselves are often overlooked in discussions around parenting choices. You mention the case of a father who explained that his kids asked him to work less on Wednesdays, as he’d been given the option to; he replied that he couldn’t, or else they wouldn’t be able to go skiing or to sailing camp.
But at no point did he ask them whether they’d prefer spending Wednesday afternoons with their dad over an annual ski trip. The way these men articulate it, fatherhood often comes across more as a social role – a checklist of duties and tasks – than as the construction of real relationships with individual children.3
M.Q.: This came up clearly in my research on pilots and flight attendants. For men in these jobs, family is just one variable among many, far from a priority. They often see themselves as model fathers because their irregular schedules mean they’re home when others are working, and because they provide a high standard of living. They don’t realize what their prolonged absences mean for their children, for their marriage.
Female pilots and flight attendants, on the other hand, feel the weight of absence more acutely. They prepare everything ahead of their departure: meals, clothes, childcare, pick-ups and drop-offs; they choose flights around their children and to attend family events. Yet they’re accused of having “Disneyland jobs.” Their children complain that they don’t see them; school staff remark, “You look tired” or “We don’t see you much.”
They embody absence, while the father’s absence goes unquestioned. Their partners sometimes even weaponise the children’s words: “See, they’re sad when you’re not here.” Suddenly, the children’s perspective matters – but only to guilt-trip the mother.
M.C.: There’s no secret: an interpersonal relationship develops with time, listening, attention, availability – care, in short. The more present fathers are – whether by choice or because they were made to by a shift in trajectory – the more they pay attention to their children as individuals.
I had one participant who was overwhelmed by work, on the brink of burnout. His wife threatened to leave him because she was equally exhausted. To reorganise his life and his availability and preserve his marriage, he changed jobs. Thanks to that, his perspective on fatherhood changed, too: he got to know his children better, learned more about their actual personalities. Today, he picks up his eldest from school, they chat, his son jumps in puddles on the way home; it’s an important moment of connection.
This theme of an awakening after a crisis or “shift in trajectory” is a recurring one, both in the book and in cultural narratives. It’s that image of the father who realises – too late, after burnout, a fight, a divorce – that it wasn’t worth it, that he missed out on his children’s childhoods, that he asked too much of his wife.
How can we ensure it doesn’t take a crisis to spark this realisation?
M.C.: Unfortunately, these regrets are often seen as inevitable. I remember a survey a couple years ago that asked fathers of young children, “Do you feel you spend less time with your children than you’d like?” Nearly half said yes.
When asked whether this made them feel dissatisfaction, frustration, or guilt, dissatisfaction was most commonly picked, whereas mothers would be more likely to feel guilt. Many fathers feel trapped by their work arrangement and powerless to change it.
That said, it would help to have more transparent discussions about both the joys of fatherhood and its bitter regrets. In the book, we talk about fathers showing their joy at being dads, showing they’re present; one man told us, ‘Feminism has allowed us to be a truly happy couple’; others told me in interviews that they didn’t expect to love their children this much.
Sharing these stories is essential, and we also need more men to speak openly about what they didn’t do, how they could have done better – especially from older generations, for whom this feeling is widespread, to help younger generations avoid repeating their mistakes.
M.Q.: When we asked men about who were their “go-to” people they could talk to about what it’s like to become a father, few could name any. The advice they got from their male relatives and friends was usually, “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out as you go, don’t overthink it.” And maybe in a way that’s good advice! But when there’s an asymmetry, it means one person is doing all the worrying and thinking. They socialise each other into a kind of conscious passivity, avoiding real reflection or admitting difficulties.
We need to encourage men to question the deeper dimensions of fatherhood earlier – how it transforms their inner lives and relationships. Women are expected to talk about motherhood; it’s an experience that’s passed down across generations. But you rarely hear a father-in-law sharing his parenting experiences with his son-in-law or giving him advice.
What would a truly transformative parental leave reform look like?
M.C.: Mandatory, well-paid, longer parental leave. A paternity leave aligned with maternity leave for essential co-presence early on, followed by staggered periods that can’t be taken simultaneously. As it stands, maternity leave still contributes to setting early asymmetries into stone.
With respect to work, we need to stop considering that it’s necessarily a person’s primary organisational concern – not everything has to be organised around work, work could also be organised around other areas of life. And we need to stop treating parenthood like a hobby you have to apologize for to your employer.
M.Q.: And beyond the focus on the parental couple, there’s a huge urban planning challenge to rethink our modes of living and inch towards more collective spaces.
Our current spaces aren’t designed for children to move around independently, to be autonomous; commute times can be long, communities are spread out. Relying on other parents or family is harder when people live far apart, but it can lighten the load and give children a network of support and role models. We need to move away from the idea that child-rearing rests solely on two people.
The risk is that even the work of maintaining community-based models tends to fall to women. Some people advocate for introducing “grandmother leave,” for example, without realizing that they’re still assigning all care work to women, just of a different generation.
M.Q.: Exactly. We have to ask: who sustains the village? And we need to adapt institutions to this new paradigm. I’ve heard from fathers who had to insist and argue with daycares to be listed as equal contacts on their children’s files. Some couples create shared email addresses, because we’re not used to sending child-related information to two people. But we have to ensure the shared address doesn’t by default become the mother’s.
M.C.: Systematically informing fathers could also help working-class men who can’t be at school pickup. If they had access to information, they might feel more involved, ask questions, and strengthen their bond with their children. This would expand the notion of “presence” without reinforcing unequal norms.
Finally, who do you care for, and who cares for you?
M.C.: I care for my parents, not in a daily way because they live autonomously, but psychologically. I try to help them articulate things, open up about unspoken feelings, especially my father. It’s a generation that doesn’t talk, so there’s a kind of reverse socialisation involved in getting him to express himself. And as for me, my friends and partners take care of me.
M.Q.: I care for my partner, my roommate, and my rabbit. They’re my daily companions. To care for me, I can count on my friends, who are very feminist and deeply care about care; and I can count on my partner, too.
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See also:
“Être un père féministe: mission impossible?”, 2025, Éditions Textuel. In French, untranslated.
The authors note that their research focused exclusively on heterosexual fathers, and that they therefore don’t extend their analysis to gay or trans dads.
When I was editing this, my mum also made the good point that involving children’s perspectives in discussions also means thinking about how care work is perceived by them — not as something you need to try and get out of, do as little of or else you lose out, but something you do because it benefits you and everyone else, and thus has inherent value.
Lots to think about here.
Fatherhood is central in my life. Becoming a father has upended many of my beliefs and forced me to review and change my perspective on almost everything. As my kids grow, that process only deepens. I try to capture some of it in my own posts.
Fatherhood, at its best, is more than providing. More than “helping.” More than doing better than the flawed fathers that came before us. It is becoming fully responsible for the relationship itself.
The part about children needing ordinary time struck me most. So much of fatherhood happens in the small repetitions: school pickup, bedtime, questions in the car, muddy shoes, bad jokes, being available when nothing dramatic is happening. That has become my favourite part.
I also think many men discover too late that provision without presence is a bad bargain. The real work is not becoming a heroic dad. It is becoming a dependable, emotionally awake one.
I've learnt so much reading this. The idea that men compare themselves to their fathers not their partners is a simple but very telling idea. Lots of useful practical tips in this too, thanks!