The Dads Listen Up at International Women’s Day, Part One
Thanks to The Meteor, we spoke to amazing women in media at the Brooklyn Museum and heard about ways dads can plug into social issues and activism year-round.
On International Women’s Day, I had the amazing opportunity to represent Dads for All as a content partner for Meet the Moment, an exceptional day of conversation at the Brooklyn Museum organized by The Meteor, an organization of women in media dedicated to telling and amplifying compelling stories, especially through the work of BIPOC creators, LGBTQ+ folks, and groups traditionally underrepresented in media.
As I thought about what I wanted to ask these dynamic speakers, I thought about the issues that matter for women, the issues that matter for children, and we know that, in many cases, they're the same issues that matter for men and dads. In launching Dads for All, we've been trying to figure out how dads can plug in, and how we can continue this dialogue on an ongoing basis.
Despite having only a few minutes with each speaker, the conversations were deep and meaningful, so we’re breaking the interviews into two posts so our readers can get the full experience. In this first installment, hear from:
The Meteor co-founder, actor, and activist Amber Tamblyn, who spoke about how we might open our children’s eyes to our work in social justice
Economic security expert Dr. C. Nicole Mason, founder of Future Forward Women, a brand new initiative aimed at building women’s power and influence in the U.S., about how women’s issues are dad issues, too
Comedian Negin Farsad about growing up in an Iranian household and how parenthood can be a gateway drug to vulnerability
Special thanks to Dadfriend extraordinaire Sabrina Cartan for the invitation to participate! We’ll post more interviews from Meet the Moment later this week. You can also watch today’s interviews here:
THE DADS CHAT WITH AMBER TAMBLYN
Justin Cohen, Dads for All: So I couldn't help but notice that your daughter was running around here on her Heelys. I'm a dad, and I often bring my daughter to do activism with me. How do you balance your parental role with your role as a leader and an organizer?
Amber Tamblyn, The Meteor: That's a really great question. I don't know if anyone's ever asked me about the intersection of those two things before. I think they're super important. You know, my daughter's eight years old. She's lucky to live here in Brooklyn. So she goes to a public school here. She is around a diverse body of kids and friends in her community. I think that[‘s important], especially given the landscape of the world we are living in today, where material is being banned from schools, any information or history about enslavement or about immigration or about women's rights.
It's so important to me to make sure that I not only bring her to see stuff like this once in a while, she can only take in so much, you know, because she's still so young. But even just to go like, “Marlo, that's Raquel Willis. Do you know who Raquel Willis is?” You know, even just people that tell her like, “That's Paola Mendoza. Do you know who Paola Mendoza is?” Sort of like giving her a sense of women who have extraordinary bodies of work in organizing spaces and who have literally changed the landscape of the country in such profound ways. So even introducing her to little things like that I think are really important. When she was much younger — again, like I don't think it fully she knew exactly what it was — I took her to the Black Lives Matter protests that were here. She held signs, she was curious, she had questions. And so I think, you know, you find your moments, but you're always very honest.
DADS: Even in a place like Brooklyn — my daughter is also a public school kid in Brooklyn and we have a lot of culture here, but the aperture can be pretty narrow for what constitutes leadership. And I think being really intentional about saying, “There are other ways to be in the world except these really obvious ones.”
AT: I could have easily had her babysitter here. I could have left her home and said, “Mama's going to the museum.” But I really wanted her to come, wanted her to meet everybody and say, “This is important. You may not remember it, you might a little bit, but getting to meet these women, getting to meet these people, seeing, also seeing what your mom does, what your mom has been doing, the work your mom puts into, this is really important, and getting to meet other parents and people who are doing the same.”
DADS: I took my daughter to North Carolina right after the hurricane last year to do some service, and we spent a weekend there. She doesn't talk about anything else more than she talks about that. Nothing. It's the most important. "Can we go back to North Carolina, Dada? Just me and you?"
AT: Yeah, you know, I took my daughter — my husband's whole side of the family is from Georgia. So we went down there to campaign and go door to door for Kamala Harris' campaign, which was [my daughter’s] first experience with that. I co-ran Hillary Clinton's youth outreach program in her 2008 campaign. I worked for her next campaign, in 2016. I've done a lot of political work in that sense.
So I was very nervous for her to go do it. And I also didn't want to see her heartbreak. And she actually had a conversation with an older woman where she asked who she was voting for. And the woman said, “I'm voting for Donald Trump baby.” And I saw her face go white. And I was like, this is the moment, right? This is the moment where she understands how complicated it is. I can't protect her because in her mind, she's like, “How could someone? It doesn't make sense to me.”
But in the moment, it was a really powerful experience for the both of us because I both wanted to protect her from the world and knew that I couldn't. I knew that the sooner she can ask questions and feel outraged about the way things are in the world, but also to question the way in which women come to their own decisions sometimes is really a profound thing.
DADS: Honestly, protecting kids from the truth might be how we got where we are today.
THE DADS CHAT WITH DR. C. NICOLE MASON
DADS: So we have an audience of dads, right? And dads are a lot of things, but one thing they're not is super engaged in politics as like an identity, right? What could men and dads change if they got more engaged in advocacy and politics and policy?
Dr. C. Nicole Mason: Well, we need everybody, including dads. So I know dads are busy doing a lot of things. I don't know, throwing footballs around or I don't know. Moving heavy stuff. But if dads were going to get involved in a policy issue, I think they should get engaged on issues of care. So child care, elder care, because it directly impacts them and impacts their families. Another issue, reproductive rights and access, again, that's a dad issue. Equal pay for equal work. When women are paid equally, that benefits men and dads and the household. So I think those three issues, I would say, are important.
DADS: If you look back two generations ago, we didn't expect women to work outside of the home. Now, everybody works. Dads don't really do child care. Still. So, on a lot of things we're not quite there yet, we haven't quite caught up to the times, right? All families are dealing with this on their own. And so we need policy to make it possible for people. You can't just say to everybody, “Hey, by the way, this country is not going to pay for child care. We're not going to give you a real childhood education. Make it work as a family.”
CNM: That's what they're telling us, but that's not okay. And I think everybody has a role to play. You know what? You know what I really think is happening? So I feel like dads are really thinking and feeling a lot, but nobody's asking them what they're thinking and feeling. So I think we just, I think we need to start asking, like, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think we should be doing so that there's more engagement, there's more inclusion, and we're working together. And we haven't done that well.
DADS: And I think what's really powerful about that idea is that when I think about family economic security, when I think about care, it should be [that] mom and dad are on the same page. This is a united front. Think how powerful that would be if families were united.
CNM: That would be so powerful and we'd all be winning. It'd be like a win, win, win, win, win for everybody. Let's do that.
THE DADS CHAT WITH NEGIN FARSAD
DADS: Okay, so you talked about Farsi expressions that you'd never heard growing up. I have a daughter who is half Iranian. What are some things you hope I will say to her?
Negin Farsad: I hope that you say to your daughter, "I'm proud of you." I hope you also say "I love you" regularly, which, I know, sounds sad for me that I just didn't hear those things. It just wasn't culturally what was happening in our household, even though I did experience the feelings. But I think saying it really helps. And also just like asking what they did in their day. Like I think in the eighties and nineties, children were best not seen or heard. And now you get to actually have children that talk to you. And so I say embrace that.
DADS: Well, my kids don't have any problem talking! So, we have an audience of dads. It's International Women's Day. What do you wish men could hear on a day like today?
NF: Man. I would love for men to use the excuse of their children to be more vulnerable themselves. You know what I mean? Kids are a great way into that because you don't want your kid to be closed off from their emotions. So I feel like kids are like a gateway drug to being vulnerable.