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198 Pages·2013·2.546 MB·English
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The History of Fatherhood in Norway, 1850–2012 Global Masculinities Edited by Michael Kimmel and Judith Kegan Gardiner Michael Kimmel is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including: Men’s Lives , Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men , The Gendered Society , The Politics of Manhood , and Manhood in America: A Cultural History. He edits Men and Masculinities , an interdisciplinary scholarly journal, and has edited the Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities and the Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities. He consults with corporations, NGOs, and public sector organizations all over the world on gender equity issues, including work–family balance, reducing workplace discrimi- nation, and promoting diversity. Judith Kegan Gardiner is professor of English and of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her books are Craftsmanship in Context: The Development of Ben Jonson’s Poetry and Rhys, Stead, Lessing, and the Politics of Empathy. She is the editor of the volumes P rovoking Agents: Gender and Agency in Theory and Practice and Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory , and a coeditor of The International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities . She is also a member of the editorial board for the interdisciplinary journal Feminist Studies . Published by Palgrave Macmillan : Masculine Style: The American West and Literary Modernism By Daniel Worden Men and Masculinities Around the World: Transforming Men’s Practices Edited by Elisabetta Ruspini, Jeff Hearn, Bob Pease, and Keith Pringle Constructions of Masculinity in British Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present Edited by Stefan Horlacher Becoming the Gentleman: British Literature and the Invention of Modern Masculinity, 1660–1815 By Jason D. Solinger Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema By Debbie Ging The History of Fatherhood in Norway, 1850–2012 By Jørgen Lorentzen The History of Fatherhood in Norway, 1850–2012 Jørgen Lorentzen THE HISTORY OF FATHERHOOD IN NORWAY, 1850–2012 Copyright © Jørgen Lorentzen, 2013. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-137-34337-6 All rights reserved. This translation has been published with the fi nancial support of NORLA First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. W here this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-46564-4 ISBN 978-1-137-34338-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137343383 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lorentzen, Jørgen. [Fra farskapetshistorieiNorge. English] The history of fatherhood in Norway : 1850–2012 / Jørgen Lorentzen. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Fatherhood—Norway—History. 2. Families—Norway—History. I. Title. HQ756.L6513 2013 306.874(cid:2)2—dc23 2013024248 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Note from the Series Editors vii Foreword i x Introduction 1 Research on Fathers 8 Part I 1850–1927 13 The Patriarchal Father at the Hearth 13 Separate Spheres 1 9 Father’s Involvement during the Birth 22 Father as the Dearest Company 28 The Home as Man’s Refuge 34 Quantity of Time 3 9 The Distant and Authoritarian Father 43 Early Changes in Gendered Relationships 47 Ibsen and Fatherhood 4 9 The Patriarchal Father 53 The Fallen Father 57 The Loving Father 62 The Father’s Declining Presence in the Home 66 Part II 1927–1970 7 1 The Golden Age of the Housewife and the Banishment of the Father from the Home 71 The Era of the Housewife Reaches Its Highpoint 77 Optimism about the Future in the Absence of the Father 81 The Father as a Laughing Stock 86 Murmurings of Criticism about the Father’s Absence 89 Sigurd Hoel’s Culturally Pessimistic Family Revolt 94 The Heterosexual Harmony 102 vi CONTENTS Part III 1970–2012 107 The New Father and the Democratization of Intimacy 107 Fatherly Feelings 112 A New Trend—“Dad Books” 113 Men as Humorists 116 Men’s Differences 121 The Similarities in Fathers’ Practice 126 Recent Research on Fathers 130 Political Initiative to Strengthen the Father’s Nurturing Role 132 Absent Fathers in the Era of Fatherly Intimacy 139 The Great Fatherhood Paradox 144 My Struggle: The Struggle over Fatherhood 147 The Opening 150 Masculine Inadequacy and the Fear of the Feminine 154 Afterword 165 References 173 Index 185 Note from the Series Editors In Sweden, a “real man” is one who does childcare for his own chil- dren, and liberals and conservatives argue not about whether there should be government-mandated paternity leave but about the allo- cation of time between new mothers and fathers. In China, years of enforcing a one-child rule have led to a population with a vast demographic imbalance in the number of males over females, with consequences yet to be determined. In Iran, vasectomy is becom- ing increasingly popular as men seek to take more responsibility for family planning in an atmosphere of restrictive gender roles. In the Philippines, government-supported export of women as nurses, maids, and nannies to first-world countries alters the lives of boys and girls growing up both at home and in the developed countries, and Mexican American men adapt to their wives’ working by taking more responsibility in housework and childcare, while their ideology of men’s roles changes more slowly. And throughout the world, war- fare continues to be a predominantly male occupation, devastating vast populations, depriving some boys of a childhood, and promoting other men to positions of authority. Global Masculinities is a series devoted to exploring the most recent, most innovative, and widest ranging scholarship about men and masculinities from a broad variety of perspectives and meth- odological approaches. The dramatic success of Gender Studies has rested on three developments: (1) making women’s lives visible, which has also come to mean making all genders more visible; (2) insisting on intersectionality and so complicating the category of gender; and (3) analyzing the tensions among global and local iterations of gender. Through textual analyses and humanities-based studies of cultural representations, as well as cultural studies of attitudes and behaviors, we have come to see the centrality of gender in the structure of mod- ern life and life in the past, varying across cultures and within them. Through interviews, surveys, and demographic analysis, among other forms of social scientific inquiry, we are now able to quantify some of the effects of these changing gender structures. Clearly written for both the expert and more general audience, this series embraces the viii NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITORS advances in scholarship and applies them to men’s lives: gendering men’s lives, exploring the rich diversity of men’s lives—globally and locally, textually and practically—as well as the differences among men by social class, “race”/ethnicity and nationality, sexuality, ability status, sexual preference and practices, and age. MICHAEL KIMMEL AND JUDITH KEGAN GARDINER Foreword This book is the result of two research projects financed by The Research Council of Norway. The first project, “Men and Masculinities,” was a part of the Research Council’s program, “Gender Research: Knowledge, Boundaries, Change” (2001– 2007), and the second project, “Being Together, Remaking Public Intimacies,” was part of The Research Council’s Program on Assigning Cultural Values (KULVER) (2008–2012). Funding for the translation of this book into English was provided by NORLA, for which I thank them enormously. I would also like to thank my Norwegian editor, Ingrid Ugelvik, for all her invaluable comments and meticulous work on my manuscript, as well as the countless enjoyable discussions that went into creating the final book. Ingrid is, without a doubt, one of Norway’s best academic book editors today. Thanks also to my dear colleagues here at the Centre for Gender Research, particularly those who were involved in the research proj- ect “Being Together”: Wencke M ü hleisen, Unn Conradi Andersen, Anne Lorentzen, Fredrik Langeland, Lin Pr ø itz, Arnfinn Andersen, Å se Rø thing, Heidi Eng, Siri Lindstad, and Rannveig Svendby, who read the last part of this book and provided such constructive and illuminating comments. A thank you also has to go to my English translator, Deborah Dawkin. Her attention to detail, and demand for clarity, has in places made this English edition better than the original. Finally, thanks has to go to my closest family, Nefise, Andrea, Adrian, and Julian, who ultimately give my life meaning. Oslo, August 2013

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