Men’s advocacy groups throughout the United States are up in arms over a television commercial for cellphones that portrays fathers as dumb and dispensable.
The commercial for Verizon cellphones shows a father perplexed by his small daughter’s homework before being humiliated and dispatched from the kitchen by the exasperated child and mother.
The American Coalition for Fathers and Children condemned the ad, saying ”our culture should be long past portraying men, and particularly fathers, as fools”.
Dozens of mental health professionals also slammed the ad for ”perpetuating a negative and counterproductive stereotype of fathers and their interactions with their children”.
The advocacy group Dads and Daughters said the commercial sends the message that fathers are ”dolts and second-class parents” and argued that Verizon would never have run the ad if the genders were reversed.
”It’s really outrageous,” said Joe Kelly, executive director of Dads and Daughters.
”It’s reflective of some deeply entrenched cultural attitudes — that fathers are second-class parents, that they’re not really necessary,” Kelly said. ”To operate from the assumption that dad is a dolt is harmful to fathers, harmful to children and harmful to mothers.” — Sapa-DPA