Fathers and daughters

The story of Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Strom Thurmond’s daughter, has been used to give Thurmond a well-deserved posthumous whacking. But in the Washington Post, Jonetta Rose Barras (last seen by me complaining loudly that the two black presidential candidates were among the worst to be found) argues there is a more important issue at stake: the serious problem of girls raised without fathers.

In many respects, however, Washington-Williams is like millions of women in the world today who dream of an unconditional, requited love from that first man in their lives — a man who is supposed to protect them, usher their entry into society and serve as their guide to manhood. On far too many occasions, because of death, divorce or physical or emotional abandonment, those dreams go unfulfilled. Walk any street in America and there is a choir of the wounded singing the “fatherless woman” dirge, as Washington-Williams does. These women are of all ages and all economic and ethnic backgrounds. I have met them during the past three years at conferences where I have spoken and through letters and e-mails they have written to me. They are women who never met their fathers, or who met their fathers late in life or who knew their fathers but could not, at the risk of ravaging an entire community, acknowledge him and could not be acknowledged by him. These women suffer in silence or speak only in hushed tones in private rooms and gatherings where they know others will feel their pain.
Most people accept that boys are affected profoundly by their fathers. But experts also point to an array of effects a father can have in a girl’s life. We are only just beginning to recognize this potent influence and thus the enormous handicap created when it is not felt. Although Washington-Williams may not exhibit the obvious signs of the fatherless-woman syndrome, there can be no doubt that Thurmond’s absence in her daily life, and their decision not to acknowledge each other publicly, was a source of exquisite pain and grief.

I have longed believed that how boys learn to treat women depends on seeing how the men in their lives treat women. I have also long believed that fathers teach their daughters how they should expect to be treated by men.