Fathers of Daughters and the Ariel Ad

Advertising And Finally ... Digital Gender Issues

My dad used to do the laundry, and the ironing. He could cook up a divine meal. he adored his kids, and was adept at changing diapers. He treated women as equals, and brought me up as an equal 🙂He got me a lego set, dolls too. He got all of us books to read – on adventure and science, on far away places and history. Told us stories of ghosts, and heroes, of treasures in far away places; of the adventures from the epics; on advanced

All three siblings (two are brothers) learned to cook, and to fix plugs, and to change fuses, and we played with cars and dolls – and saw no difference in it. We learned to clean the loo, and wash up plates on which we have eaten food. We learned, there was no difference between boys and girls, in the chores we did, in the books we read, in the paths we choose for life.

There was only one condition – ‘don’t lie to me or your mother’. We didn’t. An open, open honest relationship at home, translated to all our relationships in life. We fought. we made up. We laughed. And, when i look back on our lives together, despite the many crisis and tears, the overwhelming memories are all of us laughing together.

Btw – he taught me to swear in multiple languages (with the right inflection) and to fight (if you are hitting a man attacking you, hit him with a closed fist and your thumb inside) ; he taught me to appreciate art, music and good alcohol. My love for photography comes from him, as does my passion for music.

It is another Sunday, and there isn’t a day when i don’t think of him, or miss his counsel or his humour in dealing the world, on a Sunday the missing seems more acute.

Fathers of daughters do end up changing the world. Not out of anger or fear. But, because they want a better, safer, kinder world for their daughters.

This ad made me tear up, it is true in most houses. It made me tear up because my dad was like that when he was young, and we were kids.