Embracing the Alien: Exploring contemporary issues in Male Primary Caring through the writing of a science fiction theatre script

Richard Finn

doi:10.25907/00798

How do I explore contemporary issues in Male Primary Caring via science fiction playwriting that aims to shift people's mindsets for more positive imaginings of the Male Primary Carer? The Male Primary Carer (MPC), or ‘stay-at-home father’ is the subject of books, websites, and children’s cartoons. In an age of increased father involvement, having a MPC is generally perceived as an acceptable way for parents to organise their work and care responsibilities. However, the actual prevalence of the MPC does not match this perception. Male Primary Carers are few in number (in 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 4.2% of fathers with children under 15 years old were primary carers), and frequently thought of as strange and suspicious. Alien even. As recently as June 2023, The Age published an article: ‘A strange experience’: New dads want to be more involved, but aren’t being taken seriously’ (L. Mannix 2023). So, what then are the main issues faced by the MPC? Research, personal experiences captured in my journal, surveyed responses and professional dramaturgical analysis and feedback, have all been used to address my research question: How do I explore contemporary issues in Male Primary Caring via science fiction playwriting that aims to shift people's mindsets for more positive imaginings of the Male Primary Carer? And, in doing so, illustrate, promote, and support the MPC. This is not to suggest that this study assumes all people’s mindsets are negative towards the alien idea of the MPC without exception, and proceeds from that assumption. Far from it. As will be illustrated, pockets exist in many parts of the world where the existence of a male primary carer is not viewed as that unusual. Indeed, it is these very ‘positive pockets’ that illustrate the great potential of (and the need for) a wider acceptance and an embracing of the MPC. Consequently, it is toward more positive imaginings in the choice of the type of primary caring, and in the choice to be a male primary carer, placed centre stage, that this study sets to explore and in doing so, embrace the alien. This dissertation explores my process in writing metaphorically about my own alienating experiences as an estranged MPC, as a means to an end. An autoethnographic approach, coupled with the defamiliarising Science Fiction strategy of cognitive estrangement, feedback loops via researching and producing peer-reviewed journal articles, and dramaturgical responses, have all collaborated and fed into my creative artefact – a science fiction theatre script. Having gained dramaturgical feedback for an early draft of my script; reflected upon that, rewritten; and further subjected the work to professional dramaturgical examination, has taken my creative output to as close to a public-facing critic as Covid-restrictions at the time would allow. Both the exegesis and creative artefact argue that contemporary issues faced by the Male Primary Carer and in Male Primary Caring can indeed be effectively illustrated not only via the representations and metaphors allowed by theatre, and further, by the extrapolations promoted by science fiction, coupled with the rigor of academic research and publication, but that the demands around the writing, reflection, and the rewriting, of a science fiction theatre script creates for an in-depth examination of these issues. As such my work holds value in the possibility of shifting people’s mindsets and opening potentials to explore more positive future imaginings for the MPC.

Embracing the Alien: Exploring contemporary issues in Male Primary Caring through the writing of a science fiction theatre script

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