Men have traditionally been providers and protectors, increasingly both roles are criticized, deemed insignificant or even demonized. Modern Western society believes men should be more involved in their children’s lives, more nurturing and less “cold” —as their fathers’ generation was said to be. But as with the significant loss we face with fewer women taking on the traditional role of nurturer and caretaker, we also face immense detriment as men shift away from their traditional roles.
This is not to say that men shouldn’t be applauded for spending more time with their children than men did decades ago but rather to say that we should not be so focused on lauding this positive shift that we neglect to acknowledge the benefits of the traditional male role. Fathers, Eric Fromm states in his book The Art of Loving, love through guided principals and expectations. A father’s love is —unlike mothers, conditional. This may sound like an awful idea, how could conditional love from a parent possibly be positive? But if we view our parents as representations of the world, the balance of conditional and unconditional love is necessary. Unconditional love tells you that no matter what you do you are worthy of love, conditional love drives you to continually strive to do better.
We can see the overreaching of the ‘motherly conscience’ as Fromm calls it, in our modern day society. A lot of young adults believe that they should be accepted no matter what they do. Instead of playing by the rules and learning to deal with society as it is, they are begging for ‘acceptance’. Instead of trying to earn their way in the world it seems many have come to expect unconditional maternal love from all. That is not to say that mere complacency is the ideal. But a balance of maternal love and paternal love (from parents and thereafter internalized) creates, according to Fromm, a more balanced human being.
Free and insecure
Yet many fathers are afraid of holding on to their traditional roles for fear of constraining their children and prefer instead to mimic motherly love. Bruce Feiler tells us in his New York Times article that he’d got into the habit of telling his daughters, “I don’t care what you wear. I care who you are.” A week ago on social media, someone asking for advice on whether or not to allow their daughter to train with a male coach was met by one enlightened fellow who said he lets his young daughter train with male coaches because he, “doesn’t sexualize his daughter”. To a further extreme Wendy Shalit relates in her book The Return of Modesty, the open letter of a father who tells his daughter to “go out and play” because “it doesn’t lessen you to give someone else pleasure.”
These men have the mistaken idea that they are freeing their daughters by letting go of the “oppressive” protector role, but they don’t realize that young women are immensely insecure. When a young woman is insecure about her body —which for many women is a common growing pain, she cannot make clear decisions about who to share her body with. When she is naively trusting she cannot clearly distinguish appropriate and inappropriate behavior. And when she is still trying to figure out how the world works, she doesn’t understand that certain items of clothing attract certain kinds of attention, the attention she may not want or be ready for.
Father as protector
The father who wrote this open letter to his daughter begins his letter by dismissing a humorous internet list called ‘rules to date my daughter’, which included things like, “If you make her cry, I will make you cry…” Steinmetz remarks the list essentially boils down to this, “Boys are threatening louts, sex is awful when other people do it, and my daughter is a plastic doll whose destiny I control.” This kind of thinking falls in line with the new liberal ideology insisting traditional masculine behavior is toxic. Toxic masculinity is defined as adherence to traditional male gender roles… including social expectations that men seek to be dominant… and limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger. In other words, anger is barbaric and wanting to protect one’s daughter is primitive. An ‘updated’ version of the ‘rules to date my daughter’ list that has spread across the internet more recently states, “Rules to date my daughter: I don’t make the rules… She makes the rules”
But this new approach imagines women —even young girls, as completely in control of their sexual desires, yet this simply isn’t the case. Biologically women feel a deeper emotional attachment to sex. An intended fling is more likely to turn in to heartbreak for the woman than for the man. Men compartmentalize, and sex can easily be just sex for them. Women don’t often understand that; other men do. And thus the father is better equipped to protect his daughter in the face of potential relationships than she is to protect herself.
Even outside of the hazardous liberal hook-up culture, male protection is still needed. A few weeks ago when I broached the subject of the importance of walis for women in the marriage process, many men quipped that walis were often “only out for money” or discriminated against them for no reason, those are the men women should stay away from. Sure, some walis arbitrarily make it difficult for potential suitors, but the likelihood of your dad having your best interest over the men attempting to marry you is extremely high.
This is not to say that women can’t make their own decisions about potential relationships, but you’re not doing your daughter any favors if you don’t guide her, especially when she’s young, or leave her without expectations or instructions. Women lead with our hearts, which is a part of our beautiful divine mercy, but without male protection, especially from our fathers that mercy is easy to take advantage of. Protection doesn’t make us your property, it is how you show us your love.
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