By Maariyah Malik

Edited by Jessica Yi and Alloe Mak

I wasn’t aware of what “daddy issues” even meant until I began eighth grade. Before then, my life was measured in therapy appointments and intervals between my father sleeping on the couch and my father disappearing. I was disgusted by my situation. My father, who kept barging in and storming out of my life, was a revolting thing that I wanted to hide. Compared to the beautifully balanced families that my friends had, my father was a flaming dumpster pile that burned everything around it, including me. 

However, as I made my way into teenage girlhood, I became aware of the “daddy issues” phenomenon. This revolutionary discovery came to me when I first downloaded TikTok. I, and thousands of other girls, learned through the guidance of social media that if we played our cards just right, our broken paternal relationships could make us more desirable and appealing to men. 

“Daddy issues,” at its core, is a way of labeling people who have difficult relationships with their fathers. It is a large umbrella term that covers many complicated topics that affect all genders, such as (but not limited to) toxic masculinity and abandonment issues. However, the phrase has now expanded to include a significantly sexual undertone targeted towards young women. Girls with “daddy issues” have dysfunctional romantic relationships. Because of this, they love older men. They are promiscuous, and their sexual relations are messy—often ending abruptly. All of these things were caused by their difficult relationships with their fathers. 

Media in the form of social media apps and television shows/movies are specifically complicit in oversexualizing the “daddy issues” narrative. Platforms like TikTok and television shows like Euphoria allow people to connect over their shared pain and experiences by including and popularizing women who have messy relationships with their fathers. However, these media and society’s interpretations of them have quickly morphed “daddy issues” into an erotic oversimplification of a larger and more complicated issue. 

Euphoria’s Cassie Howard is a prime example of how the media pushes the “daddy issues” stereotype onto young girls. In the show, Cassie’s father left her when she was young, which in later life impacts how she handles her romantic and sexual relationships. Cassie commits wholeheartedly to satisfying her boyfriends, especially sexually, at the cost of her happiness and dignity. While parts of Cassie’s character accurately illustrate the complexity of “daddy issues,” there is no doubt that her character is extremely sexualized and her “daddy issues” are often paired with such moments of objectification. Within the show, her mere existence is manipulated to be erotic. Whether she is walking to class, sauntering down her staircase, or crying in front of the mirror, her actions are all meant to draw attention to the curves of her body, the low neckline of her shirt, or her puffy lips and glittering eyes. It’s purposely sexual. In the final episode of the second season, when she is delivering an angry, emotional monologue on her school stage, someone from the crowd shouts, “Show us your tits!” Though the sentence is not loud and can be dismissed as background noise, its impact is larger than it seems. In that moment, Cassie was a girl who was feeling hurt, betrayed, and furious. Yet that tiny, quiet line from the crowd reminded viewers, almost subconsciously, that Cassie, despite her complex emotions, will always be reduced to a sexual object. 

Cassie’s character quickly became a favourite amongst viewers of the show, which meant that her character’s problematic portrayal of “daddy issues” was broadcasted to millions of young minds. Due to Cassie’s role within the show being widespread on media coverage on platforms like TikTok, even those who might not watch Euphoria are familiar with her character. TikTok is an app which contains a plethora of “daddy issues” focused content; songs, videos, sexy thirst traps, and dramatic stories condensed into 15-second clips that viewers can quickly watch before scrolling onto the next video. It’s a “daddy issues” epidemic. As a result of its portrayal, consumers of media will inadvertently believe that having “daddy issues” is a sensual, erotic experience, and nothing more. What’s more damaging is that young girls will see these inaccurate portrayals and subconsciously apply them to their own lives. If women are focused on sexualizing our trauma, where will we find the energy and motivation to address and resolve it?

At the root of all such media and their adoration for little girls with absent fathers are you and I. We are a reflection of the media; shows and social apps only show us the videos and concepts we want to see. As a society, we must have cohesively decided at one point that we will tolerate this sexualization—maybe even unadmittedly enjoy it—because we keep coming back for more. The “daddy issues” hashtag has 9.4 billion views on TikTok. Euphoria is streamed by millions of people. Hundreds of young female characters have and will be written to fit into this extremely predictable stereotype because companies know that consumers will always tune in to watch it. Women will try their best to mimic these impossibly unrealistic characters in hopes of being as easily digestible as these fictional feminine creations are. 

So, we package ourselves into boxes labeled FRAGILE. We make our pain romantic and beautiful. We become the ideal damaged woman that society loves and wants to see. These damaged women cry with perfect tears slipping down smooth, rosy skin, but snot never runs out of their noses. They may stay in bed for weeks but their hair is artfully messy, not matted and smelly. They are diamonds in the rough, and the men have come to cut and clean them until they sparkle on a ring finger. These women will, ideally, break down in their male saviour’s muscular arms and wait for him to stroke their hair, kiss their bare shoulder, and nurse them back to good health. 

Men love these damaged women. 

For a while, I loved being one. Oh, I adored the attention. It was a heart-shaped spotlight shining directly on me. But as I grew older, the “daddy issues” narrative became more and more problematic to me. My relationship with my father had become a tool for a man’s sexual pleasure. For so long, I felt I could only talk about my daddy issues if I sexualized them, and I worry thousands of other girls will continue to feel the same way, unless we, consumers of media, are willing to change the way in which we frame the “daddy issues” narrative.

The ugly truth? My relationship with my father is not cute and digestible. It is not romantic or pretty. I put up with this disgusting misinterpretation. I dressed my issues up with glittery lipstick, push-up bras, and long legs because I wanted to be desirable. And how was fourteen-year-old me supposed to know better? Both the media and society are complicit because of their refusal to acknowledge women unless we fit into a man’s sexual fantasy. Our issues and emotions are left undiscussed unless they have an underlying sexual component. Our daddy issues are meaningless unless it means we will have sex with that older man, allow him to care for us, and fix all of our little problems caused by our absent fathers. 

As women, we deserve to be recognized beyond our value to men, both in the media and in society. We are more than just girls with daddy issues. The repercussions of our absent fathers go beyond just craving older men, and our trauma deserves to be addressed in a way that isn’t sexual. We should be allowed to feel “unattractive” emotions and talk about the messy parts of our lives without being urged to dress them up romantically or sexually. 

“Daddy issues” is a dangerous creation, but it should not be a sexy one.