I read an interesting post today over at mutterings of a fool, sometimes it’s hard being a dad that blogs. I confess, it made me cross. I left a slightly ranty comment in response, then I sat back to try to think about what winds me up so much about this.
Dad bloggers are in the minority in the various parent blogging communities. And yet I’ve several times come across dads complaining that they do not feel represented by those communities, or that brands aren’t giving them fair exposure. This does make me cross. If a brand is selecting 10 bloggers from the wider community, percentage wise those are going to be ten women. And this is how brands are marketing to women. I wonder, are there male fashionistas out there complaining similarly? I don’t see book bloggers splitting themselves into males and females.
If we turn it around, is it possible that this is how it is for women in work? Except working women are not really in a minority. We are treated as if we are, often. The mum bit of our identity is stressed and we feel that we have to work twice as hard to seem half as good, we’re often passed over for promotion and our contribution negated. (Yes, I’ve been there. I’ve worked part time, and I’ve worked full time in IT while having children. Both times I was fortunate to be in a relatively family friendly environment, and both times I saw dads taking advantage of that too. And yet…)
And yet, you don’t really hear ppl talking about working dads. It’s just men. Because women, once we have children, are mothers almost before we are ppl in societies eyes, while men retain their own identity.
And this is what is wrong. Society will only straighten out the world of work and inequality when they recognise everyone’s responsibilities to others. Even those who are childless are children, and may find themselves carers of ppl at the other end of life, and this is how it should be. We are all interconnected.
To drag it back to blogging. These are primarily women’s communities, relating in women’s ways. I’ve seen dads wondering why they are underrepresented, and suggested it may be because they underrelate. As I suggested once before, perhaps they need to put it about a bit more? I’ll be interested to see whether they have any opinions on this post 😉
(I apologise in advance if it’s incoherent, or anyone finds it offensive. It’s not meant to be. But I’m sleep deprived and time short and I want to publish, so there you go.)
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