Welcome to The Pixel Project’s “30 For 30″ Father’s Day Campaign 2018! In honour of Father’s Day, we created this campaign:
- To acknowledge the vital role dads play in families, cultures and communities worldwide.
- To showcase men from different walks of life who are fabulous positive non-violent and non-sexist male role models.
- To provide dads worldwide a positive platform to share ideas about stopping sexism, misogyny, and violence against women and girls.
This is our 6th annual 30 For 30 campaign and through it we will be publishing interviews with dads from across the world throughout the month of June.
Our tenth “30 For 30″ 2018 Dad is Gary Renshaw from Canada.
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The Dad Bio
I’m an author (https://gwrenshaw.ca/), martial artist, teacher, and Linux druid. I’ve climbed mountains, explored caves, done Search and Rescue, and married my best friend. I became a dad ten years ago while teaching a friend’s daughter Krav Maga. She sees me as her second father, her teacher, and friend. We love each other and get together every week to watch bad movies, beat each other up, or just hang out and talk.
1. What is the best thing about being a dad?
Teaching my daughter, and then watching her become a strong, capable, loving woman who doesn’t need me, but who remains my BFF because she wants to be.
2. A dad is usually the first male role model in a person’s life and fathers do have a significant impact on their sons’ attitude towards women and girls. How has your father (or father figure) influenced the way you see and treat women and girls?
My father’s father was an abusive alcoholic. My father made a conscious choice not to use that as his role model when he became a dad, so despite everything in his upbringing he never hit us, and treated every one with respect and love. My mother was not the easiest person to live with, yet he still treated her courteously.
He taught me, by example, to see women as people, not as other. As a result, I have a few good male friends, and many good female friends. This is awesome!
3. Communities and activists worldwide are starting to recognise that violence against women is not a “women’s issue” but a human rights issue and that men play a role in stopping the violence. How do you think fathers and other male role models can help get young men and boys to take an interest in and step up to help prevent and stop violence against women?
The problem is a combination of boys being taught some things and not being taught others.They are taught that sports (especially aggressive, contact sports) are Manly, and Manly is better than Girly. They are taught that they are dominant. They are taught that girls are irrational and emotional. They are taught that Manly Men have male friends, but can only have romantic relationships with women.
It is the job of dads to teach boys that they can express their own emotions without shame, have friendships with women, have a woman as a boss without losing their masculinity, that women have a different experience of society and privilege than they do, and that they should treat women as respectfully as they treat anyone else. They must be taught that there is a better way of living, and that includes standing with women against misogyny and sexism.