Help the Dads Get to SXSW

Quick ask before anything else: our SXSW 2027 panel is up for community voting, and it takes ten seconds to help. Vote here. Voting closes August 23. You’ll need to register with SXSW to vote.

The panel — What the Manosphere Knows That Civic Strategy Doesn’t — makes a simple argument: the manosphere is winning men not because of its message, but because it offers belonging, a place to show up. We think dads deserve better than that, and we’ve been building it. The session brings together our own Mohan Sivaloganathan, Kareem Chadly of Dads Evoking Change, and Haley Swenson of New America to lay out the playbook.

And that playbook isn’t theoretical. It’s exactly what our Bay Area chapter has been doing — the work ABC7 just put on the local news.

Mark Punzal built the fatherhood community he never had growing up: a place for dads to learn from and lean on one another. As he told ABC7, men generally aren’t encouraged to come together and talk about fatherhood. So he made the room — and it’s working. ABC7 featured our “beer and braids” gathering where dads learned to braid their kids’ hair while building community. That’s the kind of on-the-ground example the SXSW panel is built to showcase.

It’s also just one of many. A quick tour of what dads have been doing lately:

• Pittsburgh ran a service event that drew nearly everyone who signed up — a registration-to-attendance rate most organizers only dream about.

• Cleveland deepened its partnership with soccer team Cleveland SC, stretching beyond scheduled events to keep showing up for each other (even when the weather didn’t cooperate).

• Minneapolis pulled together a core group of dads and locked in its first kickoff event.

• Denver kept planting seeds, doing the patient work of reaching families where they are.

• Across all of these engagements, our seven Dads for All chapters have now hosted 24 events and counting.

Different cities, same through-line: dads showing up for one another. That’s the movement. And SXSW is a chance to put it on a national stage.

If you’ve read this far, close the loop for us — Vote here. Help decide what conversations happen at SXSW 2027.