Abstract
A father within the Indian context is considered as a gatekeeper who controls his daughter’s life in many ways. Is this true with urban educated women in the present context? With a desire to answer this question and to understand the experiences of daughters with their own fathers, we interacted with 30 educated employed women and 50 postgraduate female students from the M.S. University of Baroda. A questionnaire was used to understand daughters’ perceptions of their fathers’ beliefs about women’s capabilities and to know if their fathers’ practices were gender equal. Results revealed that fathers’ beliefs and practices related to education and career were very progressive and gender equal, but a bit more restrictive related to freedom and mobility, with extra monitoring and focus on socialisation towards family roles. In general, fathers’ practices were more liberal, compared to their beliefs. The chapter illustrates how the nature of relationships (doting or demanding and supportive to domineering fathering) and fathering behaviours play a major role in shaping daughter’s sense of self, personality and social relationships.
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Singh, R., Ahluwalia, T.K., Sriram, R. (2019). Are Fathers Gender Equal? Experiences of Educated Daughters. In: Sriram, R. (eds) Fathering in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1715-6_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1715-6_13
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