The Linekers. Image: Canvascontent We hear a lot about motherhood. Women doing it wrong, women not being women until they are mothers, mothers ruining lives, dearly loved mothers, hugely resentful mothers, mothers who breastfeed, mothers who don't love their child enough to lactate, evil step-mothers, stay at home mums, working mums and momagers etc, etc. But you rarely hear about fatherhood. Not even to insult people, we say son of a bitch rather than son of a bastard or spawn of Satan. Discussions about fathers are often presented within the binaries of present and absent fathers. If a father is present then he is probably wonderful. If he is absent then he probably has his reasons.
A father to a cis hetero son is a proud man and fulfilled football fan, a father of a daughter is involved in a peculiar relationship in which he is encouraged to be protective to the point of possessive. Recently however Gary Lineker has spoken about what having a step daughter has taught him.
What has being the step father to 12 year old Ella for the past few years taught football's nice guy Gary Lineker? Oh, that women are total bitches.
Comparing his sons to his stepdaughter and making a sweeping statement about women Lineker shared his new found wisdom on girls: "Well, they're bitchier, that's one thing I've noticed...In all the time I spent with the boys, I hardly remember them talking badly about their mates, whereas girls start young - and women are like this anyway - being picky about their friends. Boys might fight, then it's all over. But with girls it's, 'So-and-so said this today, and so-and-so is doing this and wearing that.' I find it funny, how it starts so young, that difference between boys and girls, men and women."
What has being the step father to 12 year old Ella for the past few years taught football's nice guy Gary Lineker? Oh, that women are total bitches.
Comparing his sons to his stepdaughter and making a sweeping statement about women Lineker shared his new found wisdom on girls: "Well, they're bitchier, that's one thing I've noticed...In all the time I spent with the boys, I hardly remember them talking badly about their mates, whereas girls start young - and women are like this anyway - being picky about their friends. Boys might fight, then it's all over. But with girls it's, 'So-and-so said this today, and so-and-so is doing this and wearing that.' I find it funny, how it starts so young, that difference between boys and girls, men and women."
| I find it funny that you would base your knowledge of a gender on one kid. I find it funny that Lineker doesn't seem to think that posting a photo of his step daughter, comparing her to the footballer Mesut Ozil, was kind of bitchy. | the current trend is that you aren't a daughter, you're daddy's princess. |
Becoming a parent to a child of the opposite sex seems to be something that particularly affects fathers. Comments on the No More Page 3 campaign are full of men who announce that since becoming a father to a daughter they realise the need to keep their daughter safe from objectification of this ilk. Fathers such as Revd Canon Dr Simon Taylor who signed: "Because I have a daughter, and I want her to live in a place where women are valued".
Another celebrity father, Nick Cannon was happy to describe his daughter (who is not yet out of toddlerhood) as a diva like her mother Mariah Carey. Though Cannon has expressed a wish for his daughter to pursue a field outside of celebritydom.
The father daughter bond is an important one that many people have written about and sentimentalised, the current trend is that you aren't a daughter, you're daddy's princess. And if anything is going to promote bitchy behaviour it's a load of little girls thinking they're royalty.
I'm lucky that I have a great relationship with my father however he never expressed hope that I'd be beautiful or a diva, instead praising me when I was clever, or brave. Nor did he dismiss any bad behaviour, such as bitchery, on my being a girl. He has also not claimed to have gained fantastic insight into the struggles of being female in today's society, which is simply a way of silencing women because dammit I'm a FATHER of a girl and I don't need to hear your lived experience.
Fathers of daughters owe their child the gift of a childhood free of gender stereotyping.
Squeamish Kate
Another celebrity father, Nick Cannon was happy to describe his daughter (who is not yet out of toddlerhood) as a diva like her mother Mariah Carey. Though Cannon has expressed a wish for his daughter to pursue a field outside of celebritydom.
The father daughter bond is an important one that many people have written about and sentimentalised, the current trend is that you aren't a daughter, you're daddy's princess. And if anything is going to promote bitchy behaviour it's a load of little girls thinking they're royalty.
I'm lucky that I have a great relationship with my father however he never expressed hope that I'd be beautiful or a diva, instead praising me when I was clever, or brave. Nor did he dismiss any bad behaviour, such as bitchery, on my being a girl. He has also not claimed to have gained fantastic insight into the struggles of being female in today's society, which is simply a way of silencing women because dammit I'm a FATHER of a girl and I don't need to hear your lived experience.
Fathers of daughters owe their child the gift of a childhood free of gender stereotyping.
Squeamish Kate
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