Odilon Schwerz Burtet

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At the moment when the amendment that included the provision for paternity leave in the 1988 Federal Constitution was going to be considered, the president of the constituent, Ulysses Guimarães, quoted the comedian Chico Anysio, stating that “Father's Day was nine months earlier”. Ridiculed, the author of the amendment took the stand to defend the right to paternity leave amid laughter from fellow constituents. As if this regrettable scene couldn't get worse, as if a single prejudice wasn't enough for the occasion, the proposal to create paternity leave was immediately dubbed by constituents as “something for Indians who don't want to work”. Stereotypes tried to avoid facing the issue that, after more than three decades, has still not been resolved: will Brazilian men participate in the care of their children or not?

 

“It was while I was changing my second daughter's diapers on a table in the food court of a shopping center that my oldest daughter asked, “Why don't you change her diaper on the changing table in the men's room, Daddy?” . It was 2006, and my response was immediate: “There are no diaper changing tables in the men’s bathrooms.” Eleven years old at the time, the eldest was indignant: “But that’s sexism, Dad.” The passage never left my memory, as it was the first time I noticed sexism that was invisible to me, but evident to an eleven-year-old girl. A father of a girl, throughout his fatherhood, realizes, often for the first time, that the roles of men and women in society are still largely reduced to the cliché “providing father, caring mother”. When challenging these roles, men and women will struggle. Male caregivers will be constantly questioned about their ability, if not their importance, in raising children. Women breadwinners will face even greater challenges: prejudice in the workplace, harassment, lower salaries, lower hierarchical positions, as well as double working hours, as they still do most of the domestic work. Impacted by the prospect of seeing my daughters go through these monumental challenges, I began researching paths to greater gender equity.”

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Preface by Marcos Piangers

 

It is the State's role to design a policy
public of paternal involvement in search of
gender equality?
Trying to bring light to the topic, Odilon Schwerz
Burtet, supported by the Promundo Institute, researched
am the drawings of the licenses as a result of
maternity/paternity in Brazil and around the world.
In Give me permission: I'm a father!, the author takes a look at
paying attention to the way in which different types of
architecture of these policies impact fathers, mothers
and babies, transforming or maintaining the culture
of the father as a mere helper in the care
with the children.

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