Fathers, adolescent daughters and gender in a low-income South African community

Abstract

Knowledge about father–adolescent daughter relationships is mostly based on research in North-American and European contexts. Furthermore, it tends to rely on either fathers' or daughters' perspectives, and not on dyadic data. Informed by a social constructionist perspective, this study investigated the fatherhood constructions of fathers and adolescent daughters in a South African low-income community. We used Charmaz' social constructionist grounded theory method. Forty-two interviews were conducted separately with fourteen fathers and their adolescent daughters. Five conceptual categories were identified: (i) Predominance of fathers' provider role; (ii) Fathers and daughters having an ‘understanding’ in which daughters apparently complied with fathers authoritarian positions; (iii) explicit expressions of affection were mostly limited to special occasions; (iv) Fathers wished a better future for their daughters and attempted to keep them on track to such a future and (v) lastly, Fathers' expected daughters to follow their instructions and not their bad examples. Our findings highlight the influential and constricting role of dominant masculine and feminine gender notions in the discourses and practices of the fathers and adolescent daughters in our study. However, some evidence of contestations were present that suggests the potential of a shift towards more equitable gender relations.

Keywords::

• fathers
• adolescent daughters
• gender
• South Africa
• low-income
• qualitative study

Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge the financial support of this research by the South African National Research Foundation, South African Netherlands Plan for Alternative Research Development and Die Berater Organisation, Munich, Germany.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. The term ‘Coloured’ was used in the Apartheid era to refer to persons of mixed racial descent. Although this usage is contentious and many argue for the need to move past it, it is still used to refer to a heterogeneous group of South African people and should therefore be acknowledged. We do not seek to reinforce Apartheid ideology by using this term, but to focus attention on and acknowledge the specific cultural, political, and economic history and context of this group.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elmien Lesch

Elmien Lesch is a senior lecturer with a research interest in close relationships, and Frederika Scheffler a Masters' student in the Psychology Department, Stellenbosch University.