Summary: Fatherhood In Indonesian Men's Lifestyle Magazines

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Title: Confronting or Confirming The Traditional Masculinity?
(Fatherhood in Indonesian Men’s Lifestyle Magazines)

Introduction

Special for his little heroes, Erwin has responsibility concept as a man “being a son has a bigger responsibility because they will become the head of the family in the future” (Santana, 2012).

The paragraph was taken from one of the article in Best Life Indonesia magazine. It illustrates man’s belief in what he himself and his son should become as a man and as a father. The paragraph also best describes the society expectation on man. In Indonesia patriarchal society, being a man means one should be able to take care of his family, and of others dependent on him. Indeed, a male person will consider as a “man” …show more content…

Therefore, in Indonesia general society father’s responsibility is measured from his ability to provide economic support for his children. This narrative closely related with the central feature of masculinity where man is a family breadwinner, supporting livelihood through work (Beauvoir, 1953; Hearn, 1992; Johnson, 2005). It generates binary opposition between men and women, especially in public and private domain. As a breadwinner, public domain was men’s field, while women was in the private domain. Indeed, the functionalist sociology perspective at the time believed in the postulate about women as the ‘heart’ of the families with male as the ‘heads’ (Risman and Davis, 2012). In the Indonesia breadwinner regime the domination of men over women were seen on how family works. As a standard in the traditional family, man or father functions as the breadwinner while woman or mother as the household keeper. However, …show more content…

Besides, in Indonesia, man as a father used to be portrayed as the distant father and being the family breadwinner is their kodrat. Now with the dramatic changing in the gender relations in the modern Indonesia, man’s kodrat was contested.
Best Life Indonesia was chosen after carefully study six other popular men’s lifestyle magazine available in Indonesia and among those, only Best Life Indonesia magazine consistently have segment about fatherhood in their publication. Approximately 23 editions of Best Life Indonesia published during the years 2008-2012 and the whole edition from 2014 including three special editions on fatherhood were analyzed. Best Life Indonesia was first published on November

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