‘I am a different father’. An intergenerational analysis of the social transformation of fatherhood in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper was inspired by Michael Rush’s works on the social construction of fatherhood in non-European contexts. It aims to fill a knowledge gap in gender, family and Iranian studies by exploring both the changing role of fathers and men’s involvement in family life and care in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Adopting an intergenerational approach and a mixed methods design, the paper considers how fatherhood practices and discourses have changed over the last decades and how different generations of men elaborate, describe, and perform the paternal role. Despite institutionalized gender inequality and a patriarchal family structure supported by family law legislation, fatherhood in Iran is anything but static. Instead, it is possible to notice a gradual redefinition of gender roles within the family. Especially urban middle class’s men are negotiating diverse masculinities and, at the same time, delivering non-traditional parenting roles.