Men and Fatherhood: New Forms of Masculinity in Europe

Abstract

The project “Modern Men in Enlarged Europe: Developing Innovative Gender Equality Strategies” has also attempted to achieve similar objectives: to create a sustainable change in gender identities by encouraging men to embrace new and modern gender roles and to overcome gender stereotypes. We used parental leave as a means to challenge hegemonic gender identities and create new images of men as caregivers in different European countries. As our research demonstrates, some care-giving men both perpetuate or resist hegemonic masculinity in their interactions with women, children, friends and strangers. Childcare enables men to construct a new attitude towards gender dichotomies and at least partially to reconstruct them. It can be argued that fathers who participated in this project represent the model of generative parenting characterized by the equal sharing of housework, child care and family responsibilities among both partners.