Alice Margaria, The Construction of Fatherhood: The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019, xiii + 191 pp, £85) ISBN 978-1-108-47509-9 (hb)

Abstract

The question of gender equality before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)—one of the most powerful human rights bodies in Europe and beyond—is not only underresearched but, to the extent that it has been the subject of research, such research has mostly focused on understanding the status of women and women’s rights, leaving aside questions about men and masculinities.1 Alice Margaria’s book The Construction of Fatherhood: The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights2 is the first comprehensive study to inquire into gender equality before the ECtHR from the perspective of men, being a welcome and much needed addition to the literature on gender legal studies. The book starts from the idea that gender equality requires not only changing women’s traditional roles, but also men’s roles, in particular that of breadwinners, which oftentimes limit men’s ability to be involved in childcare and other domestic tasks. Keeping...