Fathers’ rights movements in the EU: mobilisation for or against gender equality?

The main goal of my paper is to present an overview of the plethora of European fathers’ (rights) initiatives that constitute growing type of men’s (and parents’) mobilizations. Analysed phenomena play an important role in creating politics and discourses on men, masculinities, fatherhood and gender (in)equality. However, despite its size and rather high recognisability in the public discourse, there is a lack of comprehensive, comparative research on the European dimension of the phenomenon and my paper aims to fill this gap. The analysis is based on data collected via mixed methods approach that consist of a) quantitative and b) qualitative social research. The study includes mapping and surveying all identified fathers’ (rights) groups in Europe (n> 100) as well as in-depth interviews with 1) members of the transnational organizations Platform for European Fathers and Colibri and 2) activists from Polish, Swedish, British and German national movements. The study is informed by theories developed within critical studies on men and masculinities, as well as social movements’ scholarship.