Heterosexual men and parenthood decision-making in South Africa: Attending to the invisible norm

Despite the increased focus on men in reproductive research, little is known about male involvement in the initial undertaking toward parenthood and the subsequent decision-making that ensues.  Likewise, the process of decision-making—including the accompanying gender dynamics and politics—has not been explored. In particular, the parenthood decision-making of White, heterosexual men from the middle-class has been understudied. This silence in the literature is a result of the taken for granted nature of parenthood in the “normal” heterosexual life course.  As a result, both professional and lay people fail to question the parenthood motivations of healthy, married heterosexual people, and men in particular. Instead researchers have focused on women and/or ‘abnormal’ groups (e.g., those who have health issues, utilise new reproductive technologies, are young, homosexual people, or choose to remain childfree).  In this paper, I shall discuss the findings from a qualitative South African study on heterosexual men’s involvement in parenthood decisions that aimed to address this oversight by turning the spotlight onto those who have previously been overlooked. The study focused on heterosexual men’s involvement in parenthood decision-making at the couple level. The narratives of both women and men were explored based on the premise that parenthood decisions are collaborative and involve peculiar couple level dynamics as well as the larger power disparities of heterosexual relationships. The study's findings show that the participants had little to say on, and even skirted, the topic of male involvement in parenthood decision-making. As I shall show, this was not related to male resistance or indifference, but rather their difficulty in discussing such a take-for-granted issue.  I shall highlight how the silence around the central problematic reiterates the silence in the literature as I shall discuss the ways that this silence was discursively managed as well as its broader implications for gender power relations.