Rogueish

nodads:

It was almost half a year, to the day, after Mohamed Bouazizi had set himself on fire that Tom Ball did the same. Just like the Great Dad who “is able to do her feminism for her,” the Men’s Rights activists appropriate real militancy and vacate it of its historical purchase in order to defend their privilege (that they are in no danger of losing) - the Dads Monopoly on Violence.

Fatherhood is these fascists term of solidarity for two central reasons. The first is that it allows them to adopt the veneer of a struggle. Dads are under attack, they say, just look at the court structure, we have an analysis, and a program. The second is who it excludes. This is much more important.

There is a sense in which these fathers’ rights activists are onto something. Their historical story - once there were dads, but now feminists have made being a dad impossible - is obviously nonsense, but they are right about their exclusion from dadhood. The thing is, this exclusion is inherent to the concept of being a dad. What would it mean, after all, to be fully a dad without remainder? It would mean to be autochthonous, to be a dad without being a son, or without having any kind of relationship with another parent; it would mean, in other words, being a psychopath (I think this is where Lacan’s utility as a no dads theorist might come in). Fathers’ rights activists want some kind of fantasy plenitude of dad-ness, and experience the impossibility of this as oppression.