New fathers in the media age

Discover the tenth session of the seminar “Regards croisés sur la petite enfance” 2024-2025: "New fathers in the media age."

The seminar looks at early childhood as a social, historical and cultural construct. Theories and knowledge relating to the conception, birth and development of children are analyzed in terms of their interactions with their environment and gender norms. Against this backdrop, the seminar will explore the boundaries of this age category and address the question of its temporality according to medical, international, anthropological or historical standards.

The public issue of paternity leave emerged in November 2017 and culminated, in July 2021, in legislative reform. The duration of paternity leave was increased from fourteen days to twenty-eight days. This research is based on a field survey of feminist associations and collectives, and a group of ten fathers. The investigation consisted in going behind the scenes of the construction of the cause by questioning the intimate experiences of parenthood of these actors, and observing their commitment in the public space. Through a “composite” method, paying attention to experiences, practices, discourses and representations, plural gender dynamics emerge that run through the mediatization of this public problem. This work shows how the public issue of paternity leave - a cause linked to issues of gender equality - reproduces gendered power relations, notably through the promotion of the figure of “new fathers”.

• Laura Verquere: PhD in Information and Communication Sciences; Post-doctoral fellow at Paris-Panthéon-Assas (Carism) and associate researcher at GRIPIC (Celsa-Sorbonne Unversité)
• Charles-Edouard de Suremain is an anthropologist at IRD