If a father shows empathy to both there's no reason for him to be put into the crosshairs. If both daughter and mother have a with us or against us attitude that says more about their character than anything else. These issues can be helped with healthier living choices, therapy or medication.
For that matter, dad's have conflicts with their kids too. With both their sons and daughters. Moms have conflicts with their sons too. I don't know why mom daughter conflict is singled out as special here.
Then you didn't read before responding. As I said, there are issues of mothers' vs. fathers' roles, female self-perception, family court, etc. Each combination of mother/father and son/daughter plays out differently. Is it so hard to believe that conflict within one combination might lead to divorce more often than conflict in others? My experience leads me to believe that - through no fault of their own - mother/daughter relationships are more fraught than others. Maybe that's not true, but "they're all the same" is even more clearly not true.