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

Marina Kashina (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, North-West Institute of Management, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation)
Sergey Tkach (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, North-West Institute of Management, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation)

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

ISSN: 0144-333X

Article publication date: 10 November 2020

Issue publication date: 13 October 2021

215

Abstract

Purpose

The 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/approach

The 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.

Findings

The 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/implications

The 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/value

The 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.

Keywords

Citation

Kashina, M. and Tkach, S. (2021), "Fatherhood escape as a significant feature of the gender contract of Russian men", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 41 No. 9/10, pp. 1058-1071. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-09-2020-0426

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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