Men and Masculinities

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State Advocacy of Active DOI: 10.1177/1097184X19867389
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Fatherhood in Singapore

Adelyn Lim1

Abstract
This article examines representations of fathers and fatherhood in the advertising
campaigns of Singaporean government agencies. The introduction of paternity leave
and encouragement for fathers to play a bigger role in childcare and child-raising
suggest that the government is sympathetic to the pursuit of gender equality, but I
argue that state advocacy of active fatherhood serves to reinforce patriarchal ten-
dencies in Singapore. Current scholarship on the problematization of women in
state discourses has highlighted the power and privilege of a particular social group
in Singapore: heterosexual men. However, there has been a developing body of
theoretical and empirical research that looks more critically at the discursive con-
structions of masculinities, particularly along the dimensions of class, race, and
sexuality. This article takes up this issue of different masculinities and the implica-
tions this diversity has for understanding patriarchal culture and its intersecting
hierarchies. I propose the concept of Confucian masculinity to explain how the
depiction of active fatherhood reinforces the ubiquitous “normal family” that
upholds patriarchal ideology and perpetuates patriarchal power, thereby obscuring
the contradictions of class, race, and sexuality that exist in Singapore.

Keywords
family, fatherhood, gender equality, hegemonic masculinity, patriarchy

1
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore

Corresponding Author:
Adelyn Lim, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of
Singapore, AS1 #03-06, 11 Arts Link 117570, Singapore.
Email: socall@nus.edu.sg
2 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

Introduction
This article examines representations of fathers and fatherhood in the advertising
campaigns of Singaporean government agencies. In 2013, the government intro-
duced one week of government-paid paternity leave after, in the words of Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the 2012 National Day Rally speech, “we have
said no for a very long time . . . . [This decision is] to signal the importance of the
father’s role and your shared responsibility for raising the children” (Lee 2012). Paid
paternity leave was added to the Marriage and Parenthood Package that was
launched in 2001 in a continual effort to address the declining fertility rate, which
has remained below replacement level since 1977. Lee announced an increase of one
additional week during the 2015 National Day Rally speech, even going on to jest,
“Do not go and play golf, please use it to take care of your kid” (Lee 2015).1
Since its introduction, enhancements made to the Marriage and Parenthood Pack-
age over the years had largely focused on women. However, the ruling People’s
Action Party (PAP) became concerned after the Ministry of Community Develop-
ment, Youth and Sports (MCYS)2 commissioned and published the findings of its
Fatherhood Public Perception Survey in 2009 (MCYS 2009). Amongst the 2,220
respondents, there was general agreement that “Singaporean fathers play an impor-
tant role in their children’s lives and are active partners in shared parenting” (p. 3).
Nevertheless, there was a gap between the perception of the importance of fathers
and the actual involvement of fathers in their children’s lives. In addition, the role of
fathers continues to be recognized primarily as that of a breadwinner. Yet fathers
“want to do more and experience parenthood as a very fulfilling experience, to
which they are highly committed” (p. 6). Subsequently, the Dads for Life movement
was initiated in 2009, with support from MCYS, to “inspire, mobilize and involve
fathers to become good influences in their children’s lives—for life!” (Dads for
Life). Since its emergence, Dads for Life has collaborated with government agen-
cies, business corporations, and community organizations on initiatives to create
awareness of the importance of the father’s role, develop commitment to good
fathering, and encourage fathers to spend time with their children.
This changing culture of fatherhood has also emerged in other Confucian-
heritage countries. In China, there was extensive state propaganda on gender equal-
ity and father involvement, articulated through various media outlets during the
1990s, as part of the one-child policy that made the urban singleton child the “only
hope” of their parents (Li 2018, p. 343). In Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labor and
Welfare initiated the Ikumen project in 2010 to “generate a societal movement
whereby men are able to become proactively involved in childcare” (Vassallo
2017, p. 39). Subsequently, the term ikumen (fathers who proactively enjoy child-
rearing and are seen as cool or attractive for doing so) has become the focus of
governmental, business, and media discourses surrounding fatherhood.
In Singapore, the introduction of paternity leave and encouragement for fathers to
play a bigger role in childcare and child-raising suggest that the government is
Lim 3

sympathetic to the pursuit of gender equality, but I argue below that state advocacy
of active fatherhood serves to reinforce patriarchal tendencies. Current scholarship
on the problematization of women in state discourses has highlighted the power and
privilege of a particular social group in Singapore: heterosexual men (Chan 2000;
Heng and Devan 1995; Purushotam 1998; 2002). However, there has been a devel-
oping body of theoretical and empirical research that looks more critically at the
discursive constructions of masculinities, particularly along the dimensions of class,
“race”3, and sexuality. This article takes up this issue of different masculinities and
the implications this diversity has for understanding patriarchal culture and its
intersecting hierarchies. I begin with an overview of the patriarchal organization
of Singapore society. This is followed by an analysis of the representations of fathers
and fatherhood in the advertising campaigns of government agencies since 2013,
when paternity leave was introduced. I propose the concept of Confucian masculi-
nity to explain how the depiction of active fatherhood reinforces the ubiquitous
“normal family” that upholds patriarchal ideology and perpetuates patriarchal
power, thereby obscuring the contradictions of class, race, and sexuality that exist
in Singapore. As a form of hegemonic masculinity or “the currently most honored
way of being a man” (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, p. 832), it illustrates
dominant symbolic expectations of men and, simultaneously, the complexities of
masculine experience. Not all men aspire to or can achieve this status or participate
in its benefits, precisely because of other dimensions of their social identities or
locations, which complicate or undermine the exercise of male privilege.

Patriarchal Organization of Singapore Society

The concept of “patriarchy” has been central to many feminist interpretations of
gender inequality, but, as an analytical approach, it has been criticized for evoking a
monolithic conception of male dominance that obscures rather than reveals the
structures and processes of historically and culturally distinct gender systems. More
specifically, there has been the tendency to focus on one “essential” cause of
women’s oppression, such as reproduction (Firestone 1972) and rape (Brownmiller
1975). In consensus with critics, Walby (1990) developed a way of understanding
patriarchy that considers historical and cultural change.4 According to Walby, patri-
archy is “a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress
and exploit women” (p. 20), encompassing production relations in the household,
paid work, the state, male violence, sexuality, and cultural institutions. She is con-
cerned with degrees and forms of patriarchy as some structures are more significant
than others in different times and spaces. Degrees of patriarchy refers to the intensity
of oppression within a specified structure. Forms of patriarchy are dependent upon
the interaction of the different structures and she distinguishes between two forms of
patriarchy. Private patriarchy is based in the private sphere of the household, in
which individual patriarchs exploit women’s labor and exclude them from partici-
pation in the public sphere. Public patriarchy is based in public spheres such as the
4 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

economy and state, which collectively segregate women in the labor market and
politics from wealth, power, and status. Corresponding to Walby’s argument of
changes in both degrees and forms of patriarchy, we see a decline in the degree
of some specific forms of women’s oppression as well as a shift in the form of
patriarchy from private to public in Singapore. This provides the context in under-
standing state advocacy of active fatherhood as entrenched in the system of
patriarchy.
Purushotam (1998) discerns a single dominant ideology of the family in Singa-
pore—the “normal family” that is “rooted in Asia (China)” and “arranged with
reference to an age- and gender-based authority and power structure” (p. 135). This
claim to Asian-ness locates patriarchy at the core of the family and organizes a life
trajectory in which men endeavor to acquire membership as “breadwinner” and
“head-of-household” and women “wife” and “mother”. Since the 1960s, the gov-
ernment has advanced women’s legal and financial independence, encouraged
women’s education, and facilitated women’s entry into the labor force. However,
such policy changes reflect governmental considerations of capitalist development,
rather than its recognition of gender equity (Kong and Chan 2000). Moreover, its
pronatalist policies reinforce women’s responsibilities as “choice-bearers and deci-
sion-makers” of matters pertaining to children and the household (Teo 2013, p. 396).
Purushotam emphasizes women’s significance in the reproduction of the normal
family ideology and, in turn, the reproduction of their own subordination. More
importantly, women’s entry into the public sphere is always subject to a need to
uphold patriarchy. In other words, the main sphere of control over women has
shifted from the individual husband or father in the private sphere to more diffuse
patriarchal practices in the public sphere. Consequently, state discourses progres-
sively reveal that it is not only women, but also men, who are the active principals
for the accomplishment of the “normal family”, as the government uses legal,
political, and cultural pressure to make men live up to their obligations as bread-
winners and heads-of-households.
According to Chan (2000), state discourses on women became blatantly patriar-
chal in the 1980s, beginning with then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s “aggressive
exposition of paternal distress” over “lopsided female reproductive sexuality” in
1983 (Heng and Devan 1995, p. 146–147). Critiques have been effective in illumi-
nating the classed, gendered, and racialized “narrative of reproductive crisis” (Heng
and Devan 1995, p. 145; see also Chan 2000; Kong and Chan 2000). This continues
today in the Home Ownership Plus Education (HOPE) scheme, which offers benefits
to young, low-income, married couples and divorced/widowed mothers with child
custody when they commit to having no more than two children (Teo 2017). MSF
justifies the scheme on the basis that low-income families can “focus their resources
on giving their children a head start, and improve their financial and social
situation.”5 In particular, the specification of the age of mothers (between 18 to
35 years) eligible for this scheme reveals state control over women and their bodies
in reproducing a highly intelligent and skilled labor force for continued economic
Lim 5

success in Singapore. Herein, certain women are still engaged in child-rearing, not
for the benefit of an individual patriarch, but the collective of public patriarchy.
While it would seem that men did not figure significantly in the crisis of
maternity and reproduction, Heng and Devan (1995 p. 149) point out the often
overlooked “crisis of paternity and reproduction.” Lee’s successor, the then Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong, perpetuated his paternalistic concerns, explicitly articu-
lated in his position on public housing policies. With over 80 percent of the
population living in public housing, the Housing and Development Board (HDB)
serves as “an agent for the propagation of certain values that the state deems
significant or ‘necessary’ for the ongoing operation of society” (Chua 1991,
p. 36). Since its establishment in 1960, it has been difficult for singles to purchase
or rent HDB flats on the basis that it would “prematurely” break up the family unit
(p. 37). In 1994, the government focused specifically on unmarried mothers,
preventing them from buying subsidized flats from HDB. They can only purchase
flats from the more expensive resale market (Kong and Chan 2000).6 Expressing
disapproval of the progressive relaxation of policies in allowing unmarried
mothers to purchase flats, Goh stated, “This rule implicitly accepts unmarried
motherhood as a respectable part of our society. This is wrong. By removing the
stigma, we may encourage more women to have children without getting married”
(The Straits Times August 22, 1994, cited in Lyons 2007, p. 135–136). Constance
Singam, then president of the gender equality advocacy group, Association of
Women for Action and Research (AWARE), responded, “No woman would take
on the burden of single motherhood willingly. Those who would, have resources
on their own, but most single mothers are abandoned mothers . . . . First, the father
abandons them, then the state, too, abandons them (The Sunday Times August 28,
1994, cited in Lyons 2007, p. 136).
AWARE revisited this issue in 2016 with a parliamentary petition advocating
for changes to housing policies (#asinglelove). In a written response rejecting the
petition, the Ministry of National Development, which oversees public housing,
stated it is mindful “not to undermine the prevailing social norm of parenthood
within marriage” when helping unmarried parents and maintained that “a range of
government agencies work together to ensure no child is without adequate hous-
ing, regardless of whether his or her parents are single or married” (Yong 2017).
Despite later marriages and lower fertility rates, the government has not consid-
ered women having children outside the institution of marriage as an alternative,
and unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children remain discriminated
against by various laws and policies. Recognizing the threat to men as heads-of-
households, “this vision of women-led families struck at the core of state father-
hood itself, the institutional basis on which governmental patriarchy was posited”
(Heng and Devan 1995, p. 150).
This patriarchal authority, as vested within the family and the government, is, in
turn, related to state reclamation of Confucianism and collectivist tradition to man-
age rapid economic growth and challenge the individualistic tendency of capitalism
6 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

in Singapore. Also in the 1980s, increasing economic affluence was motivating

greater engagement in individualized choices of ideas and lifestyles amongst Sin-
gaporeans. The government became concerned with this intensifying individualism,
effecting, as it perceived, the undermining of “Asian” culture, identity, and values.
This ideological censure of individualism coincided with neoconservative self-
critique of excessive individualism in Western advanced capitalist economies and
the supposition of Confucianism as the cultural explanation for the success of East
Asian newly industrialized economies (Zurndorfer 2004). Subsequently, the gov-
ernment reconfigured Confucianism and developed the alternative ideology of
“communitarianism” that makes it politically possible to justify state interventions
in social life as preventative measures for ensuring collective well-being, rather than
exploitations of individual rights (Chua 1995, 2017).
This orientation towards communitarianism has two implications for state
advocacy of active fatherhood in Singapore. According to Purushotam (2002), the
“normal family” is constituted by the geographical and ideological East–West
binary. Consequently, the notion of “Asian” in relation to the family is defined
by the representation of the “Western” as individualistic and, by extension, anti-
family. This is affirmed by Teo’s empirical research on Singaporean men and
women and their understandings and negotiations of pronatalist policies. The
government’s approach to welfare construes “family as the first line of support,”
relegating the responsibilities of breadwinning and caregiving to individual
parents (Teo 2013, p. 397). While it was evident to both men and women that
pronatalist policies place the responsibility of arranging for various combinations
of employment and caregiving on women, there was a strong discourse around the
ideals of the “normal family” that effectively takes these gender differences for
granted. Moreover, both men and women claimed that “their practices are shaped
in particular ways because they are Asian or Chinese, Eastern or Confucian” (Teo
2009, p. 549). While the contents of culture, tradition, and values were defined in
limited ways, there was strong conviction of a shared and unique orientation
towards “the family.” The valorization of these understandings is indicative of
an ethnoracial hierarchy on the basis of the special position and superiority of the
Chinese majority in Singapore (Barr and Skrbis 2008). Corresponding to the shift
from private to public patriarchy, this synonymy between “Asian-ness” and “the
family” embeds the family as “a microcosm of the Singaporean nation . . . . It is
the breeding ground for realizing communitarianism as against individual rights.
Further, given the irrelevance of the individual per se, the family, and not the
individual is the smallest possible component of the nation” (Purushotam 2002,
p. 342). With the concept of “Confucian masculinity,” I extend Purushotam’s
(1998, 2002) observation that it is not only women, but also men, who have
become the focus for the accomplishment of the “Asian” institution of “the
family.” State advocacy of active fatherhood effectively asserts the Chinese char-
acter of familial masculinity.
Lim 7

Confucian Masculinity and State Advocacy of

Active Fatherhood
My conceptualization of Confucian masculinity is based on Louie’s (2002, 2015)
theorization of Chinese masculinity as comprising wen—the mental or civil—and
wu—the physical or martial. However, Louie acknowledges that wen-wu encom-
passes different representations and meanings over space and time. At certain points
in history, hegemonic masculinity would be expected to encompass a balance of wen
and wu. At other times, only one or the other was expected, but more importantly,
either was considered adequately masculine. Confucian masculinity emphasizes the
wen aspect of the dyad and Confucius as the embodiment of wen. Wen traditionally
refers to “those genteel, refined qualities that were associated with literary and
artistic pursuits of the classical scholars” (Louie 2002, p. 14) and the Confucian
ideal is that of the junzi (exemplary man). While wen is represented as the mascu-
linity of the elite, its attributes of gentility include kindness and moral guidance that
are compatible with the value placed on parent–child intimacy and affective expres-
siveness in the bourgeoning “psychologized” discourse of child development in
many parts of the developed world (Li and Jankowiak 2016, p. 189). Accordingly,
we will see that wen is expected in the daily expression of self, in the form of an
emotionally sensitive and expressive familial masculinity, in state discourses on
active fatherhood in Singapore.
The association between junzi and wen is also reiterated several times in the
Confucian Analects, as in “the junzi is well-versed in wen,” but junzi is rarely linked
to wu (Louie 2002, p. 44). To explicate the junzi ideal, Confucius compares the junzi
with the xiaoren (inferior man): “The junzi understands the importance of morality
(yi) and the xiaoren understands the importance of profitability (li)” (Louie 2002,
p. 45). Confucius also stated that the junzi should keep women at a respectable
distance. As reflected in historical Chinese literature, the main threat to a family
is the women who marry into it, as they are perceived as having no allegiance to the
lineage: “The acid test of manhood is whether a son is able to resist his wife’s bad
influence and whether he can effectively discipline her” (Huang 2006, p. 187).
Likewise in the advertising campaigns of government agencies, the Confucian ideal
of junzi places heavy responsibilities upon the men of the family. Men are depicted
as (future) heads-of-households, so a male member’s behavior can be either bene-
ficial or detrimental to the interests of the family as a whole. To be an exemplary
man is first of all to be an exemplary father, son, or grandson. This delineation of the
junzi is related to the significance of the father in the perpetuation of the normal
family ideology in Singapore.
Despite the conceptual reduction and transformation of Confucianism into com-
munitarianism, Chua (2017, p. 59) suggests that the government has adopted Con-
fucian political philosophy, “stripped of all historically accumulated scholarly
subtleties,” as the ideological basis to reinterpret its established practices:
“government by a benevolent bureaucracy under a virtuous ruler; a leader’s
8 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

benevolent rule that is reciprocated by the loyalty and obedience of his subjects; and
benevolence that ensures harmony within stratified and unequal relations between
the leader and the led” (MacFarquar 1980, cited in Chua 2017, p. 59). This ideolo-
gical engagement with Confucianism led to PAP leaders’ self-characterization as
junzi and this articulation of Confucian masculinity is reinscribed in state discourses
on active fatherhood as a form of hegemonic masculinity: A father has the duty to
ensure the general welfare of his family, who in turn have the duty to respect and
trust in the father. This reciprocal relationship is valued in that the father’s moral
uprightness and desire to uplift family welfare is met by the father’s placing of
family welfare above self-interests, constituting an organization of public patriarchy
that is harmonious and beneficial for all. However, this “reciprocity of duties”
(Chua, 1995, p. 36) is embedded in the definition of fathers as heads-of-
households, and is, consequently, a hierarchical structure of unequals.
In developing the dyad wen–wu as a theoretical framework and analytical tool
for the conceptualization of Chinese masculinity, Louie (2002, 2015) recognizes
that wen–wu evolves as it travels to and from China and around the world. Here-
after, I analyze the representations of fathers and fatherhood in the advertising
campaigns of government agencies so as to expound the concept of Confucian
masculinity. In Singapore, government agencies delineate much of the rhetoric on
the family and, in particular, render meaningful the normal family ideology. This
article focuses on advertising campaigns from HDB, the Health Promotion Board,
National Council for Problem Gambling, and Dads for Life. These advertising
campaigns are significant in two ways: On one hand, they illustrate changes in
familial masculinity ideals; on the other hand, the model of familial masculinity
they assume is a unitary one, with no reflection of the effects of class, race, or
sexuality that may enter in shaping the formation of fatherhood. In the following
two sections, I discuss the advertising campaigns in terms of positive and negative
representations of fathers to illuminate the Confucian ideal of junzi for active
fatherhood in Singapore.

Positive Representations: The Emotionally Sensitive and Expressive Father

This section is a discussion of advertising campaigns from HDB and the Dads for
Life movement. As I mentioned earlier, the government uses the public housing
program strategically to reinforce the normal family ideology. I will focus my
analysis on The Promise (HDB 2014) and its sequel, The Promise II (HDB 2015),
that were commissioned on the 50th anniversary of the Home Ownership for the
People Scheme. While these advertising campaigns highlight HDB’s commitment to
providing affordable and functional HDB flats across generations, the plots are
centered around the “normal family” with its concomitant classed, racialized, and
heteronormative identities. The fathers dominate the dialogue and move the plot
forward, but they are depicted as sensitive to their feelings and those of others and
committed to resolving problems through respectful, reasoned communication.
Lim 9

The Promise spans a few decades and features a couple moving into a HDB flat
when they are married, then to a larger flat to accommodate their son, and then
having that flat refurbished with elderly-friendly features when the mother becomes
afflicted with dementia. Towards the end, the mother, in one of her moments of
clarity, looks at their housekeys in her hands and expresses, “All these years, you
have always tried your very best. Thank you, thank you for giving me the most
beautiful home.” Following which, there is a flashback to the couple in their
youth, in which the father places the same housekeys in his wife’s hands and
declares, “I promise you that I will you give you the very best home that I can.”
The mother’s affirmation of the father’s promise in his youth illustrates the Con-
fucian ideal of junzi and the upholding of morality. First, it is the duty of the father
to be the “good provider.” The advertising campaign shows the father, in his
youth, going out to work and even buying the mother’s favorite confection.
However, this role of the good provider goes beyond being that of a financial
provider, to that of an emotional provider. In their youth, he is shown cleaning and
painting their new, larger flat alongside the mother and son in what appears to be a
family bonding activity, rather than a household chore. In their old age, he is the
main caregiver for the mother as she succumbs to dementia. Second, and more
importantly, he is also shown to be a good role model for his son. When the son,
now an adult, suggests that his elderly parents move in with his family to manage
his mother’s dementia, the father declines, reinforcing his selfless practice of
caregiving even in his old age.
In The Promise II, the elderly mother has passed away and the elderly father
suffers a stroke and is wheelchair-bound. He moves into the flat the adult son shares
with his wife as well as young son and daughter, and then later they move together to
a larger flat that serves the specific needs of multigenerational families. Building on
The Promise, the junzi’s upholding of morality is expounded. First, the junzi is
defined against that of the woman in his filial obligation. When the elderly father
first moves in with the adult son and his family, it is his wife that serves as his main
caregiver. However, she becomes frustrated when he tries to assert his indepen-
dence. She even tearfully suggests to her husband, “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t
take care of Dad by myself. Can we send him to an old folks’ home?” Her husband
patiently responds, “I will not be sending Ah Pa away. We will take care of him. I’ll
do more. I remember when I was young, Pa always took care of me and Ah Ma. Now
I want to do the same.” Following which, there are mirroring scenes showing the
elderly father in his youth helping his son to walk in the playground and the adult son
helping his father to walk at a physiotherapy session, the elderly father bathing his
son and the adult son bathing his father, and finally, the elderly father teaching his
son how to write and the adult son teaching his father how to type on the mobile
phone. These scenes culminate with the adult son, as a young boy, repeating a
similar phrase from The Promise, “Pa Pa, Ma Ma, when I grow up, I will give you
the most beautiful home and take care of you forever.” Second, this enactment of
filial piety also illustrates the importance of passing down the virtues of familial
10 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

loyalty from father to son. As we see in The Promise, there is an emphasis on

father-and-son relationships. Again, when the elderly father first moves in with the
adult son and his family, it is the young son, and not the daughter, that has to share
his room with his grandfather. Initially, he voices his disappointment to his father, “I
don’t want to share my room.” His father looks into his eyes and gently explains,
“Grandpa needs us.” Nevertheless, the young son gradually accepts his grandfather
as part of his family and cheerfully exclaims to his father and grandfather, “When I
grow up, I promise that I’ll give our family the most beautiful home.” In a tearful
exchange at the end, the elderly father expresses to his son, “Thank you very much
for giving me the most beautiful home.” This articulation of his son’s and grandson’s
filial piety is also his affirmation in passing down the virtues of familial loyalty and
fulfilling the Confucian ideal of junzi.
As I mentioned earlier, the Dads for Life movement was initiated with support
from MCYS. It is currently subsumed under the Centre for Fathering, a non-profit
organization established in 2001 that organizes father–child experiential programs
and fathering workshops in corporations, schools, prisons, and religious organiza-
tions. I include the Dads for Life movement as it continues to be supported by
government agencies like MSF and the National Population and Talent Division
of the Prime Minister’s Office. I will focus my analysis on A Dad is for Life –
Honoring Fathers from Generation to Generation (Dads for Life 2018), part of the
“Celebrating Fathers” initiative, an annual month-long series of activities across
Singapore to highlight the role of fathers and raise awareness of the importance of
active fatherhood. Certainly, as the title suggests, fathers are the main characters in
this advertising campaign. More importantly, there is an emphasis on father-and-son
relationships, as we see in The Promise and The Promise II.
A Dad is for Life begins with a father, mother, and their young daughter sitting
down to dinner. Their son arrives home late from school with an air of nonchalance.
His mother sternly questions him, “Why so late?” However, he simply replies,
“CCA (co-curricular activity).” His father is also concerned, but smiles and places
some food in his son’s rice bowl, “I cooked you and mei mei’s (younger sister)
favorite fried chicken. Come, eat more. You must be very hungry.” His son ignores
him and fiddles with his mobile phone. Similar scenes at the dining table are
repeated, in which the mother is visibly exasperated by her son’s apathy but the
father encourages him to eat instead, having spent a long time cooking his favorite
food. These scenes are followed by conversations between the father and mother as
well as the father and grandfather. Like in The Promise II, we see the junzi defined
against that of the woman, in which the father’s compassion is highlighted against
that of the mother’s. In a conversation between them, the mother insists, “He
behaves like we’re not even there, you know. I really think you have to be stricter
with him.” Despite his son’s insouciance, the father gently maintains, “You must
show some patience. Sometimes we cannot fight fire with fire.” His position is
clarified with the following conversation between the father and grandfather. The
father reveals his inclination toward aggression, “I feel like I don’t know my son
Lim 11

anymore. I tried talking to him but he just ignores me. Sometimes I feel like giving
him a tight slap just to wake him up.” In contrast to the mother, the grandfather
counsels self-control, “Let me tell you something, son. A kind action is more pow-
erful than force. And in the long run, patience and caring teaches more than punish-
ment.” The last statement is repeated by the father to the mother, emphasizing the
father–son relationship and reinforcing the significance placed on the grandfather’s
advice, rather than the mother’s. Towards the end, the son comes home to an empty
house. Upon learning that his father has been involved in an accident through a
mobile phone call from his mother, he recalls his father’s generosity and utters to
himself, “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” The rest of the family
returns home with the father walking in crutches. The son runs up to his father to hug
him, and heartened that he chose tolerance, the father reassures him, “It’s OK, son.
Daddy is fine. I love you, son.” Hence, the positive representations illustrate expres-
sive and communicative vocabulary, gestures, and practices of the caring and sen-
sitive father.

Negative Representations: The Greedy and Self-Centered Father

This section is a discussion of advertising campaigns from the National Council on
Problem Gambling (NCPG) and the Health Promotion Board (HPB). NCPG is a
council under MSF that addresses problem gambling and its impact on individuals,
families, and society. The HPB is a government agency under the Ministry of Health
that promotes healthy living in Singapore. I will focus my analysis on Excuses
(NCPG Singapore 2014a), World Cup 2014 – Kick the Habit (NCPG Singapore
2014b), and Quitting Smoking: A Father’s Quit Journey (HPBsg 2015). While
gambling and nicotine addiction may affect individuals across class, gender, and
race, these advertising campaigns feature the father as the problem gambler or
smoker. As I mentioned earlier, the junzi is not only defined against that of the
woman, but also the xiaoren. In contrast to the fathers above, these negative repre-
sentations illustrate the xiaoren and his lack of moral uprightness.
Excuses features a man speaking directly to the camera, “You know me. I know
what I’m doing. I can win it all back. My luck is changing, I’m going to strike a big
one. Imagine what we can do. One more try. I promise I will give it all back.” The
camera switches around and shows a despondent young girl hugging her piggy bank.
There is the assumption of a father–daughter relationship as it ends with the refrain,
“Protect your family. Stop problem gambling.” It does not explicitly show the
detrimental consequences of gambling addiction, but in the patriarchal context of
Singapore society, the implication is that the family suffers when the head-of-
household lacks self-discipline. This repercussion is also repeated in World Cup
2014. It presents a group of young boys chatting about the World Cup. All, except
one, are excited about supporting their favorite players or teams. He appears down-
cast, “I hope Germany will win . . . . My dad bet all my savings on them.” It ends with
a similar refrain, “Often, the people who suffer from problem gambling aren’t the
12 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

gamblers. Kick the habit. Stop problem gambling.” The father does not feature at all,
but again, he is being held accountable for his family as the head-of-household.
Quitting Smoking begins dramatically with a teenage girl on a hospital bed
breathing through an oxygen mask. It transpires that she has had a severe asthma
attack after training for an upcoming race. It is only when the doctor suggests
second-hand smoking, amongst other causes, that the father realizes he is responsi-
ble for her hospitalization. Again, we see the adverse influence of the father as the
head-of-household on the family. In contrast to Excuses and World Cup 2014,
however, the father apologizes to his daughter and makes the decision to quit
smoking, “I have not been a good dad. Ever since your mother passed away, I was
so stressed. I was smoking so much that I have completely not considered you. I’m
sorry . . . . This time, I am determined. I am going to quit smoking. For you, and for
myself . . . . Jas, I want to be there for you again. I want to make it up to you by
joining in the race.” He is even shown to be tempted to smoke by a colleague at his
workplace, but he sees a picture of his daughter at his desk and calls the smoking quit
line instead. After the race, the daughter commends his efforts, “Dad, I’m so proud
of you.” Consequently, his steadfastness has restored him to the Confucian ideal of
junzi. As a form of hegemonic masculinity, rendering the xiaoren as subordinated
“others” allows the government to delineate Confucian masculinity in relation to
what it is not and inhibit deviant performances of masculinity.
In the context of later marriages and lower fertility rates in Singapore, the gov-
ernment is compelled to inculcate a culture of active fatherhood. Reflecting the shift
from private to public patriarchy, the political ideology of communitarianism jus-
tifies state intrusion in the private sphere of the family, in which the advocacy of the
Confucian ideal of junzi for active fatherhood is a preemptive intervention that
ensures families remain an “important pillar of support for the nation” (Ministry
of Social and Family Development) and, in turn, safeguards the collective well-
being of wider Singapore society. Advertising campaigns are an implicit means
through which the government creates cultural scripts for the enactment of active
fatherhood. As we see in The Promise, The Promise II, A Dad is for Life, and even
Quitting Smoking, there is an emergence of an emotionally sensitive and expressive
familial masculinity, in which the discursive father figure embraces engagement,
openness, and respect for the feelings of those around him. As in many parts of the
developed world, the emotional labor of expressing feelings of care and consider-
ation, conventionally associated with mothers, is now portrayed as a role that fathers
can fulfill (Hochschild 2012; Li and Jankowiak 2016; Song and Hird 2013). Accord-
ingly, these advertising campaigns allude to active fatherhood as a form of hege-
monic masculinity and normalizes the attentive, communicative, and tender
heterosexual family man as a Singaporean way of performing masculinity.
While these advertising campaigns may be perceived as redressing the patriarchal
tendency associated with disciplinarian and taciturn familial masculinity, Song and
Hird (2013) point out that the discursive construction of men’s financial and emo-
tional management of the family legitimizes their hierarchical superiority to women.
Lim 13

Herein we see the Confucian ideal of junzi defined against that of women. In The
Promise II, filial obligation, specifically the lack thereof on the part of the mother as
opposed to the father as authoritative in embodying and imparting the virtue to the
son, illuminates the enduring significance of patriarchal conceptions of lineage and
responsibility. In addition, the representation of the hardhearted and strict mother in
contrast to the caring and considerate father in A Dad is for Life casts women as
provocateurs, distractions, hysterics, and, ultimately, requiring a strong man to
“contain” them so as to maintain patriarchal familial harmony.
More importantly, state discourses on active fatherhood not only describe the
dominant ideal of familial masculinity in the patriarchal context of Singapore soci-
ety, but also direct our attention to the many masculinities that do not conform to this
dominant form. These advertising campaigns illustrate how class, race, and sexuality
may subvert the relation between masculinity and patriarchy. All feature Chinese,
heterosexual, and married men as the discursive father figure. This normalizes the
dominance of the Chinese in Singapore’s economic, political, and social arenas and
perpetuates the acceptance of what Teo (2009) documents as “Asian or Chinese,
Eastern or Confucian” values that reinforce the normal family ideology. As Hird
(2016, p. 140) observes about the situation in contemporary China, the amalgama-
tion of gender norms and Confucian filial obligation requiring marriage and procrea-
tion produce the “white-collar male subject” as a married heterosexual. The
construction of this white-collar male subject requires disengagement from practices
associated with “coarseness, dishonesty, laziness, poverty, backwardness, and the
rural.” Likewise in Excuses, World Cup 2014, and Quitting Smoking, class divisions
are articulated in terms of the junzi–xiaoren divide. The image of the gentlemanly,
responsible junzi with civilized values and high moral standards mediates a middle-
class masculinity that is defined against the brusque and negligent xiaoren. Con-
sumed by gambling and smoking, the fathers’ greed and self-centeredness are
depicted as harmful to one’s family members. Hence, morally advanced middle-
class masculinity is constructed on the basis of fathers as heads-of-households,
reinforcing men’s privileged position in the family, reproducing femininity in its
current subordinated form, and rendering families outside the “normal family”
invisible.

Conclusion
One of the most prominent shifts in addressing declining fertility rates in Singapore
has been the introduction of and increase in paternity leave in recent years. Where
once women dominated the narrative of reproductive crisis, now men have taken
their place alongside women as PAP leaders increasingly admonish men to play a
bigger role in childcare and child-raising so that women do not go on a “baby strike”
(Lee 2008, cited in Teo 2009, p. 534). The aim of this article has been to interrogate
the representations of fathers and fatherhood in the advertising campaigns of gov-
ernment agencies by opening up questions of difference. It is not simply that there
14 Men and Masculinities XX(X)

are more images of active fatherhood circulating, but that a specific kind of repre-
sentational practice has emerged for depicting the father: the Chinese, heterosexual,
married man. As I have argued, what is significant about this type of representation
is that it reinforces the heteronormative, male-dominated pattern of family life and,
simultaneously, obscures the stigmatization, subordination, and marginalization
men may experience because of their class, race, and sexuality. Through the con-
ceptualization of Confucian masculinity, we see an entrenched state orientation
towards male privilege in the family that, in turn, raises the prospect that this may
consolidate patriarchal tendencies in Singapore.
However, masculinities are ultimately formed through the interactions of dis-
course and practice (Wetherall and Edley 1999). Hegemonic masculinities do not
translate effortlessly into everyday life: “The formation of gendered—and other—
identities is a creative, embodied site in which definitive media images . . . are
refracted through the material and corporeal realities of everyday lives” (Song and
Hird 2013, p. 21). Consequently, while I examine state advocacy of active father-
hood, I am mindful that men may strategically and intermittently incorporate
aspects of the Confucian ideal of junzi in practice, so that we have contradictory
and subversive practices that in turn shape the discourse on active fatherhood. In
Singapore, government ownership of the nation-building project, its microman-
agement of everyday life, and the role played by PAP leaders has focused much
scholarship on state ideology (Barr and Skrbis 2008; Chua 1995, 2017), with
meagre empirical research of how Singaporeans negotiate its pervasive and sub-
jugating rhetoric and, in particular, how this shapes their approach to breadwinning
and caregiving (Teo 2009). In acknowledging this limitation in this article, I
suggest a promising research study of the relationship of those ideologies to the
everyday lived experiences of familial masculinity. In rethinking the concept of
“hegemonic masculinity”, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) remind us that hege-
monic masculinities come into existence in specific circumstances and are open to
change. These changes involve renegotiations in gender relations and produce
redefinitions of hegemonic masculinities. Hence, it is also men’s and boys’ rela-
tionships to idealized images of active fatherhood, rather than reflections of them,
that is central to understanding the class, gendered, and racialized consequences of
Confucian masculinity.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Lim 15

Notes
For their helpful comments and suggestions, I thank Louise Edwards as well as the reviewers
and editors at Men and Masculinities.
1. This is consistent with worldwide measures to facilitate men’s involvement in the care of
their children in the form of statutory paternity and/or parental leave (Blum, Koslowski,
Macht, and Moss 2018).
2. MCYS is, at present, known as the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF).
3. I use the term “race” as a category that is real in its effects in social life. While natural
scientists have discounted the biological basis of race, social scientists recognize that
biologically grounded features continue to be used as the basis for the distribution of
power and resources between groups in society.
4. In recent years, Walby and other feminist scholars have suggested that the concept of
patriarchy has become easily misinterpreted as an ahistorical, universalistic approach in
the analysis of gender inequality. Walby (2011, p. 104) proposes the concept of “gender
regimes” which “means the same as the term ‘patriarchy’” but more readily reflects
changes over time and space, can be used to examine local, national, and international
institutions, and is therefore less likely to be misrepresented. In this article, I maintain the
use of the concept of “patriarchy” as reflected in current scholarship on the problematiza-
tion of women in state discourses in Singapore.
5. These benefits include training and employment incentives, housing and utilities grants,
education bursaries, as well as mentoring and family support (MSF 2017).
6. Although the building of public flats is initially funded by the government, Singaporeans
own their flats as private property. The majority of Singaporeans buy their first flats
directly from HDB and are able to buy and sell these flats on the resale market after a
specified number of years (Teo 2013).

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Author Biography
Adelyn Lim is lecturer with the Department of Sociology at the National University of
Singapore. Her research interests are focused on transnationalism, social movements, gender,
labor, and migration in contemporary Chinese societies. Her recent publications include
“Transnational Organizing and Feminist Politics of Difference and Solidarity: The Mobiliza-
tion of Domestic Workers in Hong Kong” in Asian Studies Review in 2016 and “Transnational
Feminism and Women’s Movements in Post-1997 Hong Kong: Solidarity beyond the State”
by Hong Kong University Press in 2015.