The Phallacy of Fatherhood

Men are the powerful ones I often hear. We men are the ones that get all that we want. And that may be true in some domains, but not all.

Men do not get the right to be a parent without the consent of a woman. (The exception is via rape and this is rightly condemned.  However, note that in this case, conception depends on the vagaries of nature first, and then the woman's choice second.  In the modern, Western world, abortion is generally available on demand, especially if conception was via rape). 
Once a woman consents to conception, it is interesting that she gets all the congratulations. Everyone comes up and rubs her tummy, smiles and says well-done. No-one is rubbing his genitals and saying 'well done'!

In the first instance, men need a woman's consent to contribute to conception. They must then hope like hell that they were the only one invited to contribute. Apparently their hopes will be for nought in some minority of cases.

In the second instance, he needs her consent to be allowed access to the kids, and still hope like hell that he was the one that contributed at conception!

Adoption : what’s yours is mine

What if the child is born and the mother doesn't want the child? Where does the child go next?

It is not obvious – but it should be.

Perhaps we can hint at the obvious.

We do not make an unwilling mother raise a child. Equally, we do not make an unwilling father raise the child either.

That seems fair so far.

Well not quite. We are quite happy to make an unwilling father contribute financially to the child's upbringing as noted earlier.

The obvious bit that is missed is that while we generously allow unwilling parents off the hook of raising the child, her vote trumps his. Specifically, we do not even allow a willing father to raise the child. Why not?

The father is the other parent, the first one who should be considered if the mother decides to abandon the children to adoption. But it doesn't work like that.

In the rather frightening and media-worthy case of Baby Richard, the father knew that his estranged girlfriend was pregnant. When he contacted her after hearing that the baby was born, he was informed that the child had died in childbirth.

However, 57 days after the child had been born, he heard that the child was still alive – and had been given up for adoption by the mother.

He then proceeded to contest – through the legal system in the US – for the right to custody of the child. After four years, he won. But the media circus turned his win into a loss.

The return of the child to the father was a televised event. As can be well imagined, the young boy of four was in tears as he was torn from the only people that he had ever known as caregivers. The image and story was emotionally wrenching. And the father was clearly identified as the villain.

A father fighting for his own flesh and blood.

The media was doing its job and selling a newsworthy story. But in so doing, they overlooked the real crime. The real crime was that the father had to fight to win custody of his own child for so long when the mother did not want the child.

Due process takes its time, and it is undoubtedly difficult to allow a child to be removed from an adoptive family. But it is equally difficult to allow that father has to fight for four years for the right to raise his own son as in the case of Baby Richard.

In Connecticut, a child was given up by an 18 year old mother who six months changed her mind and wanted the baby back. She won her case within two more years even though she was living in a homeless shelter.

Baby Jessica was adopted out without her father's knowledge. The father initiated proceedings to block the adoption. After he repartnered with the birth mother, they won back their baby within two years.

Baby Emily's Dad however lost his case. He never succeeded in his desire to block the adoption. Perhaps appropriately because he had made some serious mistakes. He was a convicted rapist and had shown no interest in the child initially.

Nonetheless, this does much to undermine the UN Charter of the rights of the child : the right to know, and to be cared for by her parents. She can make mistakes in giving up a child, but a father cannot.

Undoubtedly the rights of the woman and the man can come into conflict as revealed in efforts for father's rights to be considered in Florida in the wake of the Baby Emily. But how do women's rights come to dominate father's rights?

Oral Contraception : just say 'No'

A well-meaning mother to her daughter: "The best contraceptive is an oral contraceptive my dear. Just say 'No.'"

Perhaps one of the greatest contributions of the feminist era for many women was being given permission to just say 'No.' Germain Greer famously encouraged this in saying that "man regards her (woman) as a receptacle in which he has emptied his sperm, a kind of human spittoon, and turns from her in disgust"

Leaving aside Greer's accusation, it must be acknowledged that without a bit of splish and splosh, it's difficult to have a baby – if you want one.

By way of alternative, you can go to a hygienic supermarket where men 'spit' into a cup. Then a white-coated scientific type using a microscope can tease it, freeze it, and if it pleases the women, use a number of artificial approaches for getting one of his wrigglers to weasel into her egg. Certainly helpful if you can't conceive any other way. But to choose this route for convenience seems a little bizarre. I would opt for the charm of the organic, free-range option – but to each his own.

But what if you don't want a baby? The contraceptive options are much better than they were in the 60s – and especially the oral contraceptives. Contraception has clearly made significant advances in inhibiting fertilization. What is less obvious is that most of the major advances in contraception have delivered enormous benefit to woman who can now be in control of their bodies – and the consequences of sexual relations.

The rhythm method and condoms are imperfect forms of contraception – and ones where information exchange and fair-play are requisite. Using (or not using) either method without informing the other is not likely to be a secret that is easily kept for long.

However, the development of the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP) through the late 1940s and 1950s clearly changed this.

The history of the development of the combined oral contraceptive is one that is populated by a good number of women. Edris Rice-Wray Carson was a particularly important contributor being involved in important early clinical work. Other women played critical roles encouraging, supporting and facilitating (including financially) the development of the pill: e.g., Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick.

However, while women were involved, most of the scientific development was undertaken mostly by men : Russell Marker, Gregory Pincus, Min Chueh Chang, John Rock, Carl Djerassi, Luis Miramontes, George Rosenkranz, Frank Colton, etc.

Despite female involvement, and despite the apparent power that the pill provided, some women were quite vocal in complaining after the combined oral contraceptive was released for public consumption in 1957 in the US. Barbara Seaman published a book called The Doctor's Case against The Pill in 1969. Senator Gaylord Nelson, a man, launched Senate hearings in 1970 to deal with the issue. Alice Wolfsen and other feminists became incensed at the hearings as it was only men that presented evidence to the hearings.

Despite these concerns, the pill continues to be widely distributed today. Like many medications, it has associated risks and benefits. However, it is difficult to imagine that women would permit the pill to be removed from sale in today's era.

The pill provides good contraception. More interestingly from my point of view, it gives control primarily to women. Whereas the rhythm method and condoms require more active participation from both parties, the pill requires no participation from the man. Indeed, the man need not even know that she is taking an oral contraceptive.

Oral contraception gives women a source of power by allowing them to be more sexually active without risking pregnancy and without his knowledge. This offers an interesting strategy to the woman. She can have sex with any number of men until she gets the one she want to father her child. Then she simply needs to continue to have sex with the father-to-be (and others if she wants) until she gets pregnant.

When she becomes pregnant, she can tell Mr. Right, that would be the guy with all the money - regardless of whether he's the father or not! Richie Rich is "presumed" to be the father in the court of law and ongoing childcare payments over the life of the child ensure that the child, and if she has chosen well, she will not need for much.

Not that any women would do this of course. But she can.

Meanwhile, for the man, the truth is difficult to ascertain. Rather dauntingly, if she is successful in conceiving while telling him she is taking a contraceptive, she controls whether he learns of his fatherhood status or not. His status as father is firmly within her control.
It is clearly the case that women control conception in a way that is beyond the comprehension of a man. It is more difficult for the man to deceive a woman and 'make' her fall pregnant.

I have heard of instances of men sabotaging their condoms to make a woman pregnant. Such a deceit is rightly viewed as ugly and disgusting. However, do we hold the same view of a woman who dupes a man?

There is of course, some talk about an oral contraceptive for men. I do not think that such a drug will be very successful. Woman may or may not be consciously aware of the power that they wield through the operation of 'the pill.' However, I suspect they will be very leery of allowing men that power over conception, even though it is the same power that women currently have over men.

A male contraceptive pill will of course allow men at least the power of veto. Like the old chestnut about a man who manages to wear a condom during sex without the woman realizing. After the act, she dreamily speculates, 'What would we call the child if one was to have been conceived.' 'David' he responds from the bathroom while disposing surreptitiously of the condom. Under his breath, 'We'd call him David Copperfield if he got out of that.'

If the male contraceptive pill works, then the man – without informing the woman – can ensure that she does not have a child with him as the father. It does not however give him the choice and the power to have her become a parent to a child without her knowledge.

And even if it did, biology would ensure it would still not be possible to be deceived about who is the mother.

Conception : Mum’s the word

An Irish lass comes home fearful of something she must tell her father.
"Fother, t'ere's sometin' oi need to tell ya. Oi tink tat oi'm pregnant."
The daughter sighs in relief having made her admission. Her father smiles at her.
"Roight you are dortor of moine. But are ya shore dat it's yoars?"

Information is power it is said. Women hold particularly privileged information when it comes to conception.

Despite the modern use of the first-person plural by some couples to announce a pregnancy as in "We are pregnant", the fact is that she and she alone is pregnant.

To be sure, a man must have contributed. No human child can been born without a contribution of a man. Even if the man's contribution, a sperm cell, organic and natural, was snap-frozen at harvesting, defrosted, and subsequently hand-delivered to the awaiting egg cell.

It is the woman, fecund and fertilized who can be rightly called a mother. She carries the egg cell fertilized by a sperm cell – called a blastocyte initially, and later elevated to a zygote.

She can be sure that it is her egg. But the man that can be rightly called the father? Heaven alone knows.

Close behind heaven is the mother who, under natural insemination procedures, has the best chance of knowing who is the father. Not a perfect chance it must be said, but surely the best chance.

Contrast her knowledge of who vs when. When the mother comes to realize that she is pregnant can vary enormously. However, she is going to realize at some point if the pregnancy runs to term.

Some women claim to know or feel conception at the exact moment that the sperm fertilizes the egg. Even if that intuition fails her, there is the missed period to signal the beginning of a new life. And if that signal fails to offer sufficient notice, eventually her swelling belly will make apparent what is going on inside.

It is difficult for a woman to not realize that she is pregnant. At some point, the baby will be out of the amniotic bag.

There are some cases of women who have delivered babies without even realizing that they were pregnant. Albeit rare, it raises an interesting point. If the pregnancy can be invisible to the mother, then how much effort is needed to conceal it from others?

There was an era when 'ill-conceived' babies, that is, pregnancies in under-age and/or unmarried women were concealed from an entire community. So it is entirely conceivable (pun intended) that a woman could conceal her pregnancy from the father.

In contrast with women, men's knowledge about a conception is very limited. He may not even know that a woman is pregnant let alone what man impregnated her. His understanding is necessarily based on what the woman tells him combined with his skills in detecting signs and piecing together a story. It is rather ironic then that men are oft-times criticized for their poor performance at reading hints or clues.

The mother's parentage can never be doubted. A father's parentage can only rarely be described as certain. She is the gatekeeper being the only one with any real access to this fact. And this assumes she is both willing and able to say who is the father.

The knowledge and power afforded to mothers through this biological asymmetry of parental roles at conception is very apparent in the lyrics of the hit single from Heart, All I Want to Do (Is Make Love to You). A woman has a one-night stand with a stranger, and then leaves before he wakes. Later, she re-encounters the one-time lover by chance, and he meets the child born of their encounter. She begs off her behavior by explaining…

I'm in love with another man
And what he couldn't give me
was the one little thing that you can

She has the information, the control, the rights. It is she who makes the decisions that affect conception. The man, the father? His role is superfluous. The one-time lover is nothing more than a sperm-donor. He is only informed of his being a father by accident, and is not being invited to be involved.

While this is just a song, it highlights the disadvantages facing men relative to women in reproduction.

The flipside is a man who is made the father without having made any biological contribution to the child…