Homer Simpson has been blamed for reinforcing negative gender stereotypes about “hapless” dads.
Former minister Jo Swinson told MPs during a debate on International Men’s Day that characters like the bumbling Simpson had helped “undermine” men’s roles as fathers.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, who is MP for East Dunbartonshire, was supported by Schools Minister Nick Gibb who said that, although light-hearted, television programmes and adverts can “reinforce damaging stereotypes”.
Ms Swinson said: “We need to go quite early in life to start looking at the stereotypes that are placed on boys from the earliest months and years of their lives.
“We talk about things like ‘boys will be boys’, ‘boys don’t cry’, people get told to ‘man up’ as if showing some kind of emotion is a sign of weakness.”
She added: “Men’s role as fathers is an incredibly important role that has often been dismissed and undermined.
“You just look at some of the stereotypes in popular culture, the Homer Simpson type of dads just being hapless not being able to be up to the job.
“Breast feeding aside, there is nothing that women can do as parents that men cannot do.”
Tory minister Mr Gibb said: “We have all seen adverts showing how men are incapable of doing the dishes, who need a woman to step in to take over.
“Although light-hearted, these adverts can reinforce damaging stereotypes which can affect how we view men’s and women’s roles.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel