tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309663644247115378.post7606066149432206430..comments2015-10-28T20:55:42.025-07:00Comments on Parthenon: Paternal InstinctAgishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01074828202399142807noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309663644247115378.post-84811177778282577752010-07-12T17:03:18.463-07:002010-07-12T17:03:18.463-07:00With the dating protection I wonder if it isn'...With the dating protection I wonder if it isn't pent up desire to protect. If your child goes 14 years and you haven't defended her from any wild animals or any real dangers yet, I could see certain fathers feeling unfulfilled. So it seems possible that some of that pent up desire to protect could spill out into the exagerated character of the shotgun wielding father. <br /><br />However, I'm not sure that holds water, as it doesn't explain the gender difference. I think the lion slaying paternal intinct I describe applies equally to sons and daughters. It's possible that it is exactly what you say. Father as protector is lost in today's world, and so a certain cultural group just assigns something new to the father to protect: virginity instead of physical safety.Agishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01074828202399142807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4309663644247115378.post-33579297290145399272010-07-12T14:42:58.433-07:002010-07-12T14:42:58.433-07:00This is interesting - it's especially interest...This is interesting - it's especially interesting as it applies to the gender of the children, and also to some questions of class.<br /><br />The protective instinct is obviously a lot stronger when it applies to fathers and their daughters in early dating. Teenage girls rarely get chased out of their boyfriends' house with a shotgun. This all then shows the projections that go on to dating: it's specifically that girls need protection from boys. <br /><br />There's obviously a strong grain of truth to that; women are distinctly at greater risk of partner violence and of course, they're the ones who get pregnant. But an overprotective parents, you'd think, would be at least skeptical of partners of either sex, who certainly are intruders that could mess up a kid emotionally or whatever. The construction of fatherhood as violent really creates a wall there, I think, where boys and dads are generally unable to talk about vulnerability and instead just start ignoring each other in that context, if the general schema is unchallenged.<br /><br />On a different note, we do have two broad constructions of fathers as providers and/or protectors, and I think as men have generally lost earning power, or at least, the power to be sole earners, there's more pressure on the other side. The rise of the bizarre, right-wing virginity obsession, as specifically a role for fathers, may have some root in this class change: no longer could middle-class men see themselves as sole breadwinners who could comfortably have fulfilled their duty. Forced to share that role with their wives, some men certainly could be tempted to find a new source of that authority, and sought out the purity/virginity movement because it gave them a very gendered relationship with their family - in all its creepy incestousness. It triggered the violent wing once the material wing was damaged.Themistocleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488850002933680387noreply@blogger.com