Question - how much of a feminist ally is/ was your dad ?

[Sundancerintherain]

My dad, in his 80's now, big burly working Irishman always treated me ..........exactly the same as my brothers.
Sport, DIY, learning to drive , learning to cook, cleaning, life admin, car maintenance. All shown everything, all expected to muck in, all valued.
It's as I go through life that I realise that my group of friends had vastly different experiences with fathers and that their expectations of adult relationships are vastly different.

Very much, although I totally failed to appreciate it at the the time. Always said he was delighted to have only daughters, never wanted boys. Bought a combination of boys/girls toys, attempted to teach us useful typically make skills, didn't set any limits on what we could do. Pretty fab for the 70s/80s!

I'm really sorry to hear about some of the other stories on here

Not at all. Misogynist to the core.

Increasingly came to resent that my mother, with no qualifications, scored higher than he did on a Mensa test.

He resented that he had clever daughters. He despised the one child who didn't meet his standards and declared, "How could I have fathered that ?"

Mine died last year but he was pretty great in terms of being a feminist on the whole. He certainly encouraged me to believe any career was open to me and was always proud of my academic achievements as he was of his granddaughters.
My grandmother was widowed when he was a small child and was a pretty strong, robust character who struggled to bring up two children so he had her as a role model.
He was very politically active and a fairly senior trade unionist representing both men and women so he was well aware of discrimination and the issues women faced.
My mum once took on a national sporting body over a discriminatory issue about being women not being allowed to use certain facilities and he was very supportive and this was back in the 1970s.

He was a great rugby fan and used to hate Delilah being sung at rugby matches because it was about domestic abuse.

He wasn’t perfect by a long way but he was on the right track.

My dad is in his 80s now. In many ways he wasn't the easiest of fathers, not very involved in my early childhood and always very critical. However, he did teach me many life skills and encouraged me to go to university, so he was a strong influence on me in that way. I don't think he'd consider himself a feminist in any way, but in my view he's more so than my mother. Certainly he brought me up to think I could do anything I wanted. I'd like to think he's proud of me, but he's never told me so.

He pretended, but only because he wanted to keep me sweet so that I would be his carer when he got old

My dad passed away very recently at 83.

He was 37 was I was born in the middle 70s and had grown up in kids homes after his dad died when he was just 2.

He was an amazing, fully involved dad...doing night feeds and nappy changes,taking me out in between shifts or napping with me on his chest to give my mum a break.

He cooked and helped out with housework.

But mostly he raised me to be open minded and to chase my dreams. I don't think he'd have minded one iota what I'd done with my life so long as I was happy. I always had his unconditional support. We shared a lot of hobbies and passions and he wasn't a typically 'blokey bloke' so I don't think it would have occurred to him to be any other way...I miss him so much.

TBF to my mum,she was a bit ahead of the game too...she managed the household finances, did all the driving, car maintenance and DIY and prior to having me had a better paid and more prestigious job than dad.

That said, she's become more small-minded with age...I frequently have to remind her that one doesn't need a penis to operate a lawn mower or drive more than 5 miles from home .

Being a feminist wasn't discussed. Ally is a modern thing. My dad did believe in equality though and education and let me believe I could be anything I wanted to be. He was an engineer and would have loved me to have gone in to engineering. My mum did most of the cooking etc although she ended up earning more than him.

Always supported me in every way possible, but did get irritated when they put Captain Janeway in charge of Voyager!

Mine could never be described as feminist, very few men born in the 40s could.

My parents had defined traditional roles to a point but he was a lot more hands on than many men of his era. He cooked, did laundry and looked after me and DSis several evenings a week whilst Mum worked or went out. He took us out places, read with us, did homework and supported hobbies.

He is a significant improvement on his own Dad who couldn't even make a cuppa himself.

He's been widowed a few years now and has coped just fine on his own, partly I think because he's capable of doing the basics for himself.

There were attitudes he could have improved on when we were growing up, we did clash a bit when I was a teen, but looking back I could have had it a lot worse.

He never discussed it but he showed it. My DM was less of a feminist when I was younger, basically just wanted me to be a housewife. It was my dad who encouraged me to be more than that.

He supported my education but that's probably about it.
Serial adulterer, abusive emotionally to me, lazy and selfish. Not a role model on any front really.

Mine wouldn't have described himself as feminist but as his oldest I drove trucks, loaded trailers with him, did the sheep farming, mowed the grass, drove tractors and sorted the cattle.

He also taught me how to train the dogs.

Not once as a girl or young woman was I ever told I couldn't do it as well as the men, I was encouraged and spurred on and told I was doing a good job

When I struggled with the physical work I was told to try a different method of getting it done (think calving) and that my strength would improve as I grew.

I was also around other women who had married farmers and delighted in keeping the home and kids but also in wrestling the sheep just as well as the men did so I was in great company

Not at all a feminist ally. Wouldn’t have known what that even meant.

My dad always treated my sister and I pretty much the way he'd have treated boys, I think.

He likely wasn't so much from my mom's POV though that really has nothing to do with feminism. He was just not a reliable person for a variety of reasons, in many parts of his life.

He'd probably not know what it meant to be an ally and would laugh if someone told him.

In addition to what I've said already, prompted by other replies... He did encourage my education. He had never had the value of education explained to him, just being expected to work in the family business. He was an intelligent man, held back by the lack of formal qualifications.He impressed it on me too, and I encouraged my DD to go to university, on the grounds that whatever you choose to do in your career, once you have the degree, no one can take it off you. Contrasted with DH's children, young adults with limited options in the job market for not having had this.

Mine would have been 86 now, he died when he was 83. He wasn't a particularly traditional manly man. Didn't do DIY, knew sod all about car maintenance, not much of a drinker etc. But he very much believed in equality. Would have been initially surprised to see a female mechanic for example but only because it would have been rare, and he would have vocally defended the woman's right/ability to be a mechanic if anyone had suggested otherwise.

He and my mum had fairly traditional breadwinner/housewife roles and she did the bulk of the housework but he would certainly have pulled his weight. And despite his lack of formal education (although he was very intelligent and wrote lots of published articles etc) he was a fervent believer in education and was embarrassingly proud every time I passed a professional exam.

Interesting question! I used to think so because I was always told that I was no way inferior to boys, supported to aim high in my education and career etc. Definitely sees himself as progressive.

But as I’ve got older I realised that actually it was often my more masculine traits that were praised and I was taught subconsciously that “feminine” things were bad. Like being strong and independent was good but being “girly” was bad. Also he did (and still does) absolutely sweet FA around the house. There was this whole narrative around how he had a Big Important Job so Couldn’t Possibly Lower Himself. Except now I also have a big job and still manage to contribute to the housework etc. As does my DH. I love my dad and reading other posts he really wasn’t that bad for his time, but yeah, could do better in the feminist stakes!!

My dad was and is a great feminist and it was great being brought up by him. He's only ever encouraged me and never said "that's not for girls". My mother on the other hand is and was a complete nightmare - I just don't understand it! Very glad to have a feminist dad.

My dad wasn’t at all. He wasn’t that bothered about my education, though he was concerned about my brother’s. He would make comments about me grooming myself better or acting more ladylike, but encouraged my brother to be raucous and active. He took my brother with him to buy cars and to sporting events and me to buy crockery and housewares - no other 1:1 trips.

Fortunately my parents separated when I was 7 and I only saw him a few times a year so his impact was one of stark illustration of sexist attitudes rather than slowly building those attitudes in myself.

A few years ago I had a chat with my brother about our dad not being around much as we grew up. He thought his life would have been better (we lived in poverty and my mum, though wonderful in many ways, didn’t really cope well for a lot of our childhood and there was some neglect). I had to tell him that though I didn’t think we’d had the best childhood, I thought I was better off for the fact our dad wasn’t around much. It was a bit of a light bulb moment for me - that my dad’s sexist attitudes would probably have been worse than poverty and mild neglect. I wonder at how we allow so many children to be brought up in those circumstances an how little attention is paid to how those attitudes affect children at the public policy level.

Mine was impressively even-handed, and a great champion of girls and equality of opportunity.

The girls got dragged into assisting with car maintenance, welding, etc every bit as much as the boys.

But…. The boys didn’t do the baking or ironing…

My father would never have described himself as a feminist, and my parents split their domestic chores on pretty traditional lines. But he was kind and loving, and proud of his children. I spent my childhood with him, as he was retired and my mother was still working, and we did woodwork, gardening, cooking and reading together. When I was very ill at 6, it was he who took over my rehabilitation. He had some views you'd expect from someone born at the turn of the 20th century, but he loved and respected my mother, and their life was a true partnership. The sort of harassment and entitled behaviour from men that so many women report today would have utterly disgusted him. He very much enjoyed the company of women, but they were friends - no hint of anything inappropriate.
He adored babies and was a really brilliant cook. He was manly, but never macho. I loved him very much.

My Dad is the reason I’m an empowered woman. Always taught me to look after myself, stand up for myself, earn my own money and call out sexism whenever I see it. He would be horrified if I had a misogynistic husband (luckily his influence meant I chose a great DH and we have an equal relationship). I’ve heard ‘it’s YOUR life and YOUR choice pet!’ more times than I can remember.

He also treats my DM with nothing but respect and encourages her when she has a wobble - she is a massive self-doubter because of her own upbringing.

The huge influence on my Dad though was my late DGM who was the most empowered and strong woman I have ever met. She commanded so much respect, fought for what she believed in and ran 2 successful businesses in the 1970-80s when ‘women didn’t do that sort of thing’. She is a legend and I miss her - but my attitude to life and equality is because of her and my Dad.

My lovely late dad was a through and through instinctive feminist ally. Never once was aware of any difference in power dynamic between him and my mum - both worked and both had careers. Never once treated his daughters differently then sons. That I am aware of at all. Not sure I realised how unusual that was and wish I had thought about this a bit more before he dies. He knew I loved him a lot and had fun with him and we had a great relationship. Phew. Miss him.

Not even slightly, the very definition of a woman heater.