The coronavirus pandemic: exploring expectant fathers' experiences. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Menzel, Alice
• Is Part Of: Journal for cultural research. Volume 26:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 83
• Page End: 101
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Pregnancy -- parenting -- covid-19 -- maternity care -- health -- emotions; Ethics -- Periodicals; Values -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals; Intellectual life -- Periodicals; 306
• DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2021.2002668
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1479-7585

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Coronavirus pandemic raises significant concerns about pervasive social inequities and disparate gender relations, particularly between mothers/fathers. Indeed, the pandemic engendered a general retreat into traditional parenting roles across myriad, everyday, institutional, spaces, including workplaces, homes, and welfare/healthcare services. These effects have been especially marked for couples expecting a child. Visitor-restriction policies, implemented to curb viral-spread within healthcare settings, effectively 'barred' many expectant fathers in the UK (and elsewhere) from attending antenatal appointments, and even the birth of their child; milestone moments widely regarded as significant socio-cultural 'rites-of-passage' in fathers' transition to parenthood. Many pregnant women had to face these moments alone, sparking campaigns including #ButNotMaternity. This paper critically examines how such institutional responses exhibit a complex 'welfare trade-off' effectively (re)positioning fathers as spectators, rather than participants, in pregnancy/parenthood and risk embodying a potential U-turn to recent decades' emphasis on involved, equitable fatherhood. Drawing upon the accounts of expectant mothers/fathers in the UK reported in the popular press since March 2020 and the #ButNotMaternity campaign, it employs thematic social-media analysis to explore the emotional impacts of visitor-restrictions and the gendered, emotional governance of parenting amidst the pandemic through the exclusion of particular (fathers') bodies within maternity care spaces.