Daughters without fathers

There are plenty of studies about fatherless girls and women, voices which explain how child- and adulthood is effected by the absence of a father figure. Needless to say that most of what we hear is that women who grew up without a father figure suffer from a lack of self esteem or expect their partner in a relationship to replace what they haven´t received from their fathers such as protection, safety and unconditional love.

When I started to search for girls and women of all age without father I didn´t mean "without" wordly. All people who identify as females and which I portrayed knew their father, had met him at least once. Reasons why they ended up growing up without him are plenty. There is death, disability, lack of interest, crime and rejection. While the experience of being "fatherless" is a more or less rough defintion, the question after "why and how" brings us to where it all starts. A father who died and simply hadn´t the abilty anymore to care for his daughter will leave another trace than a father who consciously rejects his daughter or doesn´t love her.

I am not interested in promoting a stigma or serve cliches. I am interested in paying attention to a shared experience which could be described as "same same but different". Even though most of the girls I had talked to described their fatherlessness as "normal" they still are aware of the fact that something essential was missing.