Fatherhood escape as a significant feature of the gender contract of Russian men

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to characterize such a feature of the gender contract of Russian men as fatherhood escape, as well as to determine the social consequences that it has for family relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe study was carried out in the design of qualitative sociology. The methodology is based on the theoretical construct of a gender contract, adapted to modern Russian society and the concept of social practices. The empirical base consists of six expert interviews with specialists in family psychology and conflictology.FindingsThe fatherhood escape in modern Russia is characterized by the depreciation of emotional labor; marking communications with children and caring for them as exclusively female activities; presentation of their employment in the public sphere as a legitimate reason for avoiding family problems; the active use by men of the technique of ignoring replicas of the interlocutor as a technique in communication with family members. This worsens the quality of intra-family communication, leads to the separation of family members from each other, especially children and leads to an increase in their deviant behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThe design of a qualitative study makes it impossible to assess the level of prevalence and severity of the phenomenon, this study is a pilot. Its purpose is to record the very fact of the existence of fatherhood escape in everyday family (social) practices. Subsequent studies should be able to show the relationship between fatherhood escape and domestic violence, as well as the role of this trait of the male gender contract in the reproduction of toxic masculinity.Originality/valueThe phenomenon of fatherhood escape and its social consequences in modern Russia is under-studied. This study contributes to the description of this phenomenon on Russian materials and also reveals some of the social consequences of this feature of the male gender contract, in particular its effect on intra-family communication, increasing the risk of deviant behavior of children and complicating the fulfillment by women of the “working mother” gender contract.