“Why Can’t Boys Be #LikeAGirl?”: Sticky Essentialism and Ambivalent (De)gendering in Fathers’ Online Accounts of Children’s Gender and Sexuality

In our media-centric age, stories and commentary about children’s gender socialization are exchanged online. Yet we know quite little about how fathers interpret the gender and sexual identities of their children and share those interpretations with others via social media. In this article, I present findings from a qualitative content analysis of blog posts about children’s gender and sexuality ( n = 122) written by American and Canadian fathers ( n = 36). I apply Kane’s ( 2012 ) “gender trap” typology to analyze how dad bloggers support and/or challenge heteronormative gendered identities, behaviors, relationships, and activities for children. Most of these fathers present anxious accounts of experimenting with gender-neutral parenting, imagining their children in future roles and relationships, permitting nonconformity in girls versus boys, and connecting childrearing to broader social inequalities. I develop the concepts of sticky essentialism —to demonstrate how essentialist logics permeate fathers’ explanations for gendered childhoods, and ambivalent (de)gendering —to explain fathers’ mixed feelings toward heteronormative gender socialization and accountability. To conclude, I discuss risks and benefits of fathers blogging publicly about children’s gender and sexuality.