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Exploring Fathers’ Integration of Care Ethics in Everyday Family Lives

Bibliographic Data

ID7287657
AuthorsJason Preston (0000-0003-2768-2075, University of Brighton, corresponding author)
Year2024
Pages1-16
Publication date2024-03-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFamilies Relationships and Societies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2046-7435 • E-ISSN: 2046-7443
PublisherPolicy Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1332/20467435y2024d000000016
OpenAlexW4392862833
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited60

This article draws on ethnographic research to explore how an ethic of care is incorporated into fathers’ everyday family lives. Drawing on feminist conceptualisations of the ‘components of care’, this research investigates how fathers recognise and interpret care needs, as well as observing how such needs are practically attended to. Central to this article is an exploration of the extent to which men’s integration of care ethics can be seen to consolidate ideals of hegemonic masculinity or whether newly emerging forms of caring masculinities are challenging traditional gendered inequalities in care work. Analysis of fathers’ recognition of care needs and what they care ‘about’ implies a masculinised coding, in which traditional masculine values are recast to align with an ethic of care. It is argued that such framings stand to reaffirm hegemonic processes, with caring forms of masculinity representing a new hegemon. However, observations of fathers’ embodied caregiving arguably demonstrate how caring ‘for’ children can challenge traditional ideals of care labour, with men’s bodies recast within an ethic of care. Ultimately, this article contributes nuanced understandings of how men interpret and practise components of care, offering distinctions in the gendered trajectories of caring ‘for’ and caring ‘about

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