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What I should be doing is writing a post on what an awesome feminist my dad is. Seriously, he’s the best – I even had to fight with him when I was a kid to get my first Barbie because he didn’t want me exposed to such unrealistic representations of the female figure.
I really dislike that e-card, as it implies that women are not able to make it on their own without falling back on Daddy
The card is funny. Irony just rusts on some people.
Renee: Consider the context. Now consider irony. Does it become clear?
WHat because its fathers day its okay to say that little girls are dependent on daddy to be independent? I don’t think so. Celebrating the men in our lives should not come by diminishing women. It seems society is always to ready to use the feminine as a pejorative.
I am fighting my wife for physical custody of my kids and child support from my career driven wife. I have been the one caring for them for all these years so I should get them right? Unfortunately, I think the courts have a bias toward mothers notwithstanding my primary caregiver role/secondary earner role. Hooray for Feminism, it is soooo fair.
Again, consider the context – it was posted by Jill, a FEMINIST, on a FEMINIST blog. Jill gets irony; if anything, the pic could be said to be feminist because it mocks the stereotype. If you have to have it explained, you’re probably not going to get it. Read your own words: dependent [..] to be independent. That’s irony.
Irony – ur doin it rong.
*laugh* love the card Jill, thanks.
that ecard made me laugh out loud.
For father’s day, I didn’t get into a fight with my dad about politics. Now I’m going to eat a cookie. Or maybe two, cuz gosh darn it, I deserve it.
I love him like ice cream, but wow, I think I was raised by wolves. Feminist wolves.
Mike, “it’s irony, stupid” is a really bad defense against accusations of sexism or racism.
That said, I do think the card can be taken as a wry acknowledgment of the fact that independence is often the result of support from one’s parents. The joke isn’t necessarily at the expense of women, but at all those upper-middle class kids who claim that they earned everything they’ve got.
I just wish it was a little girl and her mother, or a little boy. Why reinforce the idea that women are dependent upon men?
I’m celebrating Father’s Day with my newly adopted son by cooking dinner. I just took the creme brulee that we’ll be having for dessert out of the oven and put them into the fridge to cool (of course I haven’t done the blowtorch bit that has to wait until just before serving).
C bought me the 4th edition D&D books as a Father’s Day gift, she said I was too indecisive about whether I’d buy them or not, so she settled the issue for me.
I think the card is cute.
For Father’s Day I didn’t borrow money or call Daddy to come over and take out my trash. I hate to let it pile up, but he the old guy deserves a day off. At least he’ll be well rested for the double workload next weekend. Besides having a week’s worth of trash to go out by then, I’ll need Daddy to mow the lawn for me. Maybe I can talk him into taking my car to the gas station for a fill-up while he’s here. After that I’ll serve him a nice, cold glass of lemonade with a slice of homemade pie. He can enjoy it while he balances my checkbook for me.
I appreciate the irony of the card, but it also touched me.
To those who don’t like it, um how about some of us who actually love our dads and who do appreciate how much they’ve taken care of us. I’m not as independent as I could be, but if it weren’t for my dad I would be struggling to find money for groceries. I wouldn’t be as strong, confident, and sure of myself without him. Whenever my life’s been difficult, he’s backed me up. Just like a good father should. And actually, I might not be a feminist without him to teach me that I need to stand up for myself and my rights and not be a doormat. So thanks for the lovely card!
Much as of love Jills work I don’t always agree with it, just as I am sure she would not always agree with everything that I have written. I simply don’t like the card. I don’t appreciate anything that is even remotely pejorative of women in praise of men. When we get to a point in society where men and women are actually equal maybe there will be a place for this kind of humor.
Unless, of course, the accusation of sexism or racism is made against something that is not sexist or racist at all, but is, in fact, irony.
It’s a Father’s Day card…
… posted by a female.
We shouldn’t. And this doesn’t. Except in the minds of people who don’t get it.
Beth:
Very nicely said.
I like the card. I can just visualize the “son” version:
“Dad, thanks for helping me out financially so I can prolong my adolescence until I’m, oh, at least thirty-two.”
Okay, that wasn’t fair.
When I first saw the card, I thought it was classist, depicting a nice little white girl whose Papa paid for her tuition at Wellesley. But in all families, of all classes, parents can and do provide vital financial support. My wife grew up poor with a father who always managed to scrape together a few bucks to help her buy books. She came out of college with massive loans, but with a keen gratitude for her father’s many sacrifices that helped her get through on schedule.
I love that card. I just sent it too my dad. It was a toss up between that one and “Happy Father’s day from your little mistake”.
If anyone doesn’t believe that card is irony, go to someecards.com . all they do is irony.
Sorry for OT, but I disagree that all parents of all classes can and do provide vital financial support.
Most of my high school classmates…including myself had parents whose economic circumstances were such that we had to win near/full scholarships, undertake massive loans that would take 8-15 years to pay off, win an ROTC scholarship to defray education expenses because there was no way our parents could contribute a cent to our higher education expenses at the time. Most of us were aware enough to appreciate the fact our parents did the absolute best they could. Nevertheless, we also knew we were on our own in terms of finding ways to finance post-high school expenses.
Moreover, there are well-off parents who cut off financial and other support for pretty petty reasons ranging from personal selfishness to deep hatred….despite their having serious interest and aptitude for academics and socially well-adjusted. I knew classmates and current undergrads who had such parents…and after meeting some of those parents during parents visitation weekend…..they were far worse in person than what those classmates had mentioned. In those cases, I can fully sympathize if these classmates/undergrads choose to disown their parents…
I think I agree that in light of the popular disparagement of successful, “untouchable” women as a bunch of uppity daddy’s girls, the irony really isn’t all that amusing. If Jill is posting it in an ironic way, then that’s too many degrees of indirection to get a chuckle out of me.
um how about some of us who actually love our dads and who do appreciate how much they’ve taken care of us.
Yeah, that’s pretty dismissive. It’s great that you personally have a good relationship with your dad where the kind of joke on that card can be ironic, funny, etc. in context, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the card is a generic address of daughter-father relationships.
For the past several years I’ve made my daughters puzzles and a mystery hunt for their birthday. Today they made me puzzles and a mystery hunt for Father’s Day.
Later we went to a pool in a nearby town and went down the water slide a half zillion times.
Beth, how can you assume that anyone who disagrees with you doesn’t love her father? I love mine very much, and he and my mother are paying for my education. I get the card. It just made me cringe a little because–what grapeshot said.
Lottie, this didn’t have to be a Father’s Day Card. It could have been a Mother’s Day card, but someone decided to use stereotypical gender roles.
How can you not get this? I wouldn’t call it irony so much as satire. I just really really can’t understand how you can see this card as encouraging gender roles when the whole point is that it’s making fun of gender roles! Whilst in a round-about way showing appreciation for your father, as a parent, helping raise you.
God.
And nice one Enlightened, because the courts are such a wonderful representation of feminism??
I got a big boost from daddy when I was younger, so I laughed out loud when I saw this one. It’s one of those cards that encourages you to make fun of yourself, if you can relate to what’s going on in the picture.
That card hurts me a little bit. Because of the deference I have given to my wife’s career advancement, my career advancement has suffered, so I am not in a position to give money or financial help to my daughter or my two sons in any significant way, but maybe after my wife starts paying me alimony and child support I will be.
Um, it was posted on Father’s Day. That’s kind of the point… Never mind…
Excellent response. I wish it had been mine.
My nine-year-old daughter has two fathers and one mother, and all of us together went to the museum for Father’s Day because she is enormously fascinated by Ancient Egypt. When we were walking in, she told me she hoped they had something about Hatshepsut, who was apparently one of the very few woman pharoahs. She made a lot of the men so jealous of her power that after she died her name was removed from many official records as a pharoah.
And it happened that in one of the galleries was a stone lintel giving Hatshepsut’s achievements, and her name had been chiselled away! Our daughter delightedly asked to have her photo taken next to this record of one of her heroes.
Lottie, it didn’t have to be posted on Father’s Day.
Dana, no one said that the card was “encouraging” gender roles. You’re beating a straw woman.
I’m not jazzed about the D&D 4th ed.
My father is the chair of the Republican party in his county. He phoned me the other day and said: “You’re really not going to vote for that black man, are you?” He really is a nice person, though.
I see the card as amusing mostly because it aligns to my particular set of privileges and experiences, and also because it recognizes that so many “independent” women only get to be where they are through *family* support – and in past generations, having a father who was supportive (or not) could be a make-or-break thing. My grandfather, for example, instilled in all his daughters the value of education over getting a husband, but was only able to help his youngest daughter when she decided, after a long detour, to go to college and med school. All three daughters now have advanced degrees, but only one received financial help. If my grandmother had supported her daughters, without my grandfather’s blessing, none of them would’ve gotten financial support – grandma didn’t have any resources.
It’s classist, though – only some dads are around/willing/able to support their daughters, and it’s nice to recognize them, but there are plenty of dads who can’t support their daughters’ independence financially, and those daughters still do a kick-ass job. But I’m coming from a place of feminist dads, close knit families, and heaps of financial support.
I can’t believe this turned into a sexism/classism debate. It’s funny. IT IS MAKING FUN OF THE FACT THAT A LOT OF SELF OWNED WOMEN, so to speak, ARE WHITE AND MIDDLE CLASS AT LEAST. FEMINISTS SHOULD GET THAT. EL OH EL, people…
Uh, Medea, I think this would be people believing the card is reinforcing gender roles (whereas your objection just makes no sense – why is it not with mum? Because it’s a father’s day card!):
What I find interesting about the fact some people are offended by this is the fact that “we” all bewail the idiots making sexist t-shirts et al then calling it satire – as supposedly it’s obvious that “rape is funny!” is not satirical. Yet how can we argue that it’s obvious when a card that might as well have “satire!” or “mocking social stereotypes!” stamped on it is taken as being a jab at women?
And Kelsey? (a) YELLING using all caps online is rude. Just as rude as actually yelling at someone in person. (b) Telling people what they should think in a completely patronising manner is even ruder and certainly doesn’t make anyone inclined to listen to you.
P.S. Thanks Lottie :) :)
why is my comment awaiting moderation for so long?
Really? Your own words:
And:
Yeah… that’s not anything at all like saying that the card encourages gender roles. Riiiiiiight…
Whether or not it reinforces gender roles has been at the very center of this debate. Hell, it is the debate. To deny that it’s been said just because it hasn’t been phrased exactly in those words is disingenuous at best.
Well excuse me for the all caps, but it just seems like this is turning into -serious business- where it might not even have to. Rape is never funny, sheepish self-awareness can be, so comparing the two seems unfair.
Kelsey, why are you commenting if you think the topic so unworthy of discussion? It makes you sound like you get off on belittling other people. And I’ve never understood why people come onto a blog and chastise others for daring to be passionate in their views. I am personally quite capable of having a spirited debate about father’s day cards AND being horrified at rape culture. Not mutually exclusive.
Also, I think you’re misreading my post in a really big way: I don’t know what you’re objecting to in my comparison to rape-apologist bullshit since I’m agreeing with you?
Okay, from Chambers Dictionary:
Reinforce:to strengthen or give additional support to something
Encourage: to promote or recommend something or someone
The words are not synonymous. The card, posted as (presumably) self-deprecating humor by a feminist, gives additional support to the common complaint that feminists are spoiled brats whose cares are irrelevant to ordinary working people, and implies that the “independent woman” is a chimera.
To say that the card encourages gender roles would mean that I think some young woman reading it is going to decide to quit her job and ask for money from her father. I don’t think that.
I also don’t think the card is that big a deal. I jumped in because I didn’t like to see Renee dismissed as someone incapable of grasping the concept of irony.
Thanks Medea! It’s always nice to learn, early on, who does and does not debate honestly. I don’t have a lot of spare time; at least now I know who not to waste it on.
lol Lottie.
Seriously Medea, why are you acting so dense? You can encourage gender roles by encouraging people to believe in the idea which is quite do-able with stationary. Taking everything to it’s extreme doesn’t make your point any more valid
I’m not debating dishonestly! I don’t believe the card “encourages” anything. I’m being specific in the language I use.