White Ribbon’s latest PSA via Canadian agency Bensimon Bryne pulls back the curtain on the “As a father of a daughters” trope.
It has been ingrained in our pop culture for men too often wheel out the line, “As a father that has daughters, I..” Usually, the line that follows condemns some horrible thing that has happened to women or is happening to women.
The line implies that only a man that has daughters could truly understand how horrible something is. This then implies that men without daughters don’t get it or an incapable of identifying injustices happening to women because they don’t have daughters.
What might seem like a harmless thing to say actually reveals lots about our culture. Specifically that some men often only value women if they feel ownership over them. E.g., it’s their wife, mother or daughter.
White Ribbon’s latest PSA delves into this and shows a daughter going through life navigating misogyny and unwanted sexual attention, with a father narrating it with concern for his daughter.
It is later revealed the father is worried for the daughter’s future because he has a history of not treating women well. All the things he fears will happen to his daughter, he has done to women himself.
The punchy last line sums it all up, “For some men, everything changes when they have a daughter. Women and girls can’t wait that long.”
