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It’s hard to think of a time when we are confronted by more change from more places. Some of it makes us sad. Some of it makes us angry. Some of it gives us hope. Some of it takes us into uncharted emotional territory.

In this section, I share thoughts given life by recent events. Much of it will center on my work in gender - women, men, children and families. Some will visit issues from recent opinions and presentations.

Whose Voice Is It, Anyway?

Daughters and their dads share a complex relationship. When we reflect on it, we most often view dad as the nurturer and provider, guiding his children as they grow — helping them to find their way.

What happens to that relationship when daughters become a “voice” or a lifeline for their fathers?

A few days ago, Aisha el-Qaddafi, the 36-year-old daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, gave a rare interview and spoke on the record to The New York Times in support of her father. She used the opportunity to assure his followers (“He is as strong as the world knows him”), and stand apart from the rhetoric of her siblings, serving her father in a way her brothers could not.

As a mother of three young children, discussing the need to prepare and comfort them “in a time of war,” she presented a sympathetic counterpoint to her brother Seif al-Islam’s vehement vows of vengeance against the West. Her comments came into sharp and poignant clarity later in the week when it was reported that an airstrike had killed her brother Seif al-Arab and three of Col. Qaddafi’s young grandchildren — including her own four-year-old daughter. A lawyer, she had positioned herself as a seeker of peace, reminding listeners that her father had kept Libya and Europe “safe,” predicting that without him, Islamic radicals and illegal immigrants would overrun Europe, and Libyan rebels would destroy each other and the country. She presented her family as hoping for a return to normal, “if NATO will stop bombing us.” Who but a daughter could deliver that multi-faceted message at this time?

I remembered another story about a daughter whose father had asked her to help him regain his power and legacy. When I was interviewing this woman for my book Our Fathers, Ourselves, I was especially struck by how this memory still held such power for her, more than 20 years after it occurred. She told me her dad hoped she would leave her job as a successful design director for a Los Angeles luxury hotel firm to rescue the family’s foundering industrial machinery plant in the Midwest. Out of loyalty to her father, she resigned her hotel position and reluctantly relocated her husband and children to Michigan. Within three years, she was able to rehabilitate the plant and find a buyer for the business. When she triumphantly told her father of her success, he told her he had no plans to sell. His plan was for her to run the plant until she was in her sixties, and then turn it over to her much younger half-brother. She moved her family back to California and did not speak to him for a year. And now, all these years later, the retelling still stung.

Whether standing up for their fathers, or standing up to their fathers, daughters are always adding a new dimension to the father-daughter dance.

Another Perspective


April 2011

It’s hard to think of a time when we are confronted by more change from more places. Some of it makes us sad. Some of it makes us angry. Some of it gives us hope. Some of it takes us into uncharted emotional territory.

In this section, I share thoughts given life by recent events. Much of it will center on my work in gender - women, men, children and families. Some will visit issues from recent opinions and presentations.

A Gutsy, Outspoken Trailblazer

Last month we were hopeful for, inspired by, and shocked at the treatment of women in Egypt — bravely and against tradition— protesting and risking their lives to raise their voices for freedom alongside men.

Suddenly, among the tumult of the Middle East, Libya, and the devastation of a horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there came the moment to pause and honor the passing of a woman who strode to the podium and used her brains, brilliance, and moxie to pave the way for women everywhere.

Geraldine Ferraro, as the first woman in America to be nominated for national office by a major party, tore the “men only” sign from the White house door (to quote The New York Times). On the Mondale-Ferraro ticket, she did not win the second-highest office in the country. Still, she was a trailblazer who rattled the cage on good-old-boy institutions, and opened the way for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Born at home, she lost her father at age eight and was raised in the South Bronx by a single mother. Ferraro went to night school to earn her law degree, was admitted to the New York State bar and the United States Supreme Court bar. She had three children, and then became a Queens county Assistant D.A. (heading the bureau investigating rape, crimes targeting the elderly, and wife and child abuse), and a Congresswoman.

Without sacrificing her femininity or her down-to-earth, I’m-a-mom style, she walked and talked like a man. Gutsy and outspoken, Gerry inspired thousands of girls and women, and long before “Yes, we can!” she was showing us how to use our voices to make change in America.


Another Perspective


March 2011

It’s hard to think of a time when we are confronted by more change from more places. Some of it makes us sad. Some of it makes us angry. Some of it gives us hope. Some of it takes us into uncharted emotional territory.

In this section, I share thoughts given life by recent events. Much of it will center on my work in gender - women, men, children and families. Some will visit issues from recent opinions and presentations.

This month seemed to bring anger, hope and confusion in equal measure, as we watch the firestorm of unrest sweep through the Middle East.

Especially interesting to me were the numbers of women - especially in Egypt - protesting and, ultimately, risking their lives beside men. They were young. They were grandmothers. They were veiled. They were dressed in T-shirts and jeans. They were all demanding a greater voice in their future, and more sovereignty in their lives.

One middle-aged woman, in a headscarf and grasping the top of a poster with her fingertips, spoke to ABC-News in Cairo: “We are in extreme need for freedom, for free and good elections to choose, to share in the decisions in this country.”

Her clothing placed her in the traditional present; her presence was an act of bravery and a leap of faith. She was there not only to change a country, but to create a new place for women.

But when the smoke clears, and the pieces of a government are put back together, what then? What will these women—brave and determined—win for their place in the front lines of a revolution? There are some troubling signs. Early in March, in the heart of symbolic Tahrir Square, more than 200 men attacked a group of women commemorating International Women’s Day. They were knocked down, dragged away by groups of men. There were reports of stolen belongings and that some were molested.

Was it a dying gasp of traditional misogyny? Or was it an indication that women are allowed to help topple a government, but not share in the freedom and respect for which they fought shoulder to shoulder with the men?


Dr. Drexler’s complete article archive can be found here.

Regular Columns
Dr. Drexler is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and writes about the changing American family in her “Our Gender, Ourselves” blog for Psychology Today.

Our Fathers, Ourselves Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family
Published by Rodale, 2011

Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Indiebound | Chapters Indigo

Raising Boys Without Men
How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men
Published by Rodale, 2005

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Indiebound | Chapters Indigo

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