To the Young Men We Are Sending Out into the World This Fall

Dear incoming class of young college males*: I seek (and see) in you the solution.
Americans are launching the first cohort of young men out into the world this fall since the #MeToo and #TimesUp revelations surged in October 2017, growing from Tarana Burke’s decade-long call into a full-fledged movement. Perhaps we could be justified in pinning our hopes on the Class of 2022, that they emerge four years from now into the workforce as a league of men who act on, stand up against, seek help for, and do not default on matters that have exposed some of America’s most powerful men this past year as sexual predators.
As the mother of a son who graduated college this summer, and in my role as a university professor and college administrator, I have a message for these young men. *And yes, I am addressing this to cis-gendered young men, the group that has largely been identified as the problem.
Dear incoming class of young college males: I seek (and see) in you the solution.
For one, you are in the right place at the right time. Developing alongside and within #MeToo has been the reckoning with the scale and severity of campus sexual assault. You are heading into a battleground where women (and other vulnerable populations like LGBTQ students and students with disabilities) have suffered mighty losses. Let’s see with where we stand right now. Just weeks ago, Stanford rapist Brock Turner still believed he could overturn his conviction despite having served an easy sentence of three months for rape. The courts threw out his appeal of “outercourse” versus intercourse, but what should trouble us is that far too many people around him believed he would win. And as I write this, the U.S. Department of Education, under Secretary Betsy DeVos, is preparing to release a new set of policies on campus sexual assault that would prioritize protecting the accused and their educational institutions rather than victims and survivors.
Into the midst of this era of despair over just how pervasive and invincible rape culture has proven to be in this most wealthy and powerful of western nations (the U.S. was the only western nation listed in the top ten most dangerous countries in the world for women), in its sweep through corporate boardrooms and college campuses, I lay my hope in you. I do not use the word “hope” casually. I can report with confidence from my experience with the young man I have raised and the young men in my classroom that many of you are leaning into these conversations, attempting to understand the nature of consent, and willing to be part of the solution. I see you examine your accountability, listen to your friends’ #MeToo stories, and commit to actively changing the course of our culture in the classroom, in dorm rooms, and on dates.
None of this will be easy. Prepare to be mocked, marginalized, and shut down.
At this very moment, fraternities are putting rigorous finishing touches on initiations that will want to school many among you into shackling notions of traditional masculinity. In fact, most of our culture primes and promotes sexual activity as what separates the winners from the losers, the men from the boys, the “Chads from the Incels.” The pursuit of sexual encounters as a validation of your humanity brushes past any concern for whether or not you’re ready, interested, and, worst of all, whether or not you have consent.
In the years my son was touring colleges and then attending college, it turned out that all of America was learning for the first time of the staggering scale of campus sexual assault. Let’s look at our most prestigious institutions alone. In 2010, fraternity boys at Yale were chanting a mantra for sexual assault on their women classmates: “No means yes! Yes means anal!” In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz carried around a 50-pound dorm mattress wherever she went on campus at Columbia University, to protest the handling of her alleged rape on that mattress by the institution. In 2015, the aforementioned Brock Turner, a Stanford University freshman at the time, raped an unconscious young woman behind a dumpster at a party, was sentenced to six months, and then let out in three. He had a sympathetic male judge and a father who pleaded on behalf of his son’s “20 minutes of action.” But, as you probably sense from the culture that he and you have been raised in, Turner seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He took a picture of his victim’s breasts and sent it to his friends on the Stanford swim team. He was looking for their approval; he was bringing home a trophy.
How did my son navigate this culture? He found friends — men, women, non-binary friends — who tapped into the alternative ways of being on an American campus. They exist, if you will look for them. At my son’s institution, Swarthmore College, a student-led group called O4S (Organizing for Survivors)encourages reflection on acceptability, individual and collective accountability, and the role of apology as a precondition to healing and progress. My son and his friends were moved especially by the stories that six students posted online about their experiences with sexual assault. It helped in an interesting and profound way: the students turned the shame onto the offenders rather than the survivors. My boy and his friends talked about how one day, perhaps, survivors would no longer have to share their stories for campus communities to pay attention.
Turner seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He took a picture of his victim’s breasts and sent it to his friends on the Stanford swim team. He was looking for their approval; he was bringing home a trophy.
We, as college administrators and educators, haven’t exactly made it easy for you. Although one in five college women reports sexual violence during her time in college and 43% of dating women report experiencing violent and abusive dating behaviors, too many universities have been accused of mishandling sexual assault complaints and violating Title IX rules. Universities, until recently and perhaps even now, focus their sexual assault orientation materials on potential victims, giving rigorous tips to young women on how not to get raped by limiting their own behaviors, their dress and their mobility. Our institutions are afraid of a public relations nightmare and most still ask the victim to approach the institution rather than the police. And now, we have Betsy DeVos on our side.
How will you take us on and kick this culture in its teeth, especially when the pressure is on you to grin and fit in?
Help is on the way, if you are ready. The conversation is finally shifting to men/potential assaulters and how and why not to rape. The “Consent. Ask for It” campaign consists of on-campus events at over 100 colleges around the country, complete with an activist toolkit, posters, giveaways, and free condoms (The Trojan condom company has partnered with the campaign). Student advocates plan campaigns around the country to talk about consent. Columbia University is engaged in a massive ethnographic study driving policy change where it meets students in the discussion at every level of campus life — study, work, sleep, and socializing.
I hope you will find in our changing culture some sense of relief — the freedom from the masculine charge of being protector, provider, hunter.
To be sure, we need to work with you to rescue you from the legacies of the past. Perhaps, yes, we can begin by letting you get used to the idea of being rescued rather than being the rescuer. I hope you will find in our changing culture some sense of relief — the freedom from the masculine charge of being protector, provider, hunter. Interestingly, an example for us educators to partner with you in this reorientation comes from my homeland, India. Urvashi Sahni, a Brookings Institution fellow, works with high schools in India, where she asks educators to re-imagine schools as sanctuaries for boys, “where they are valued for attributes other than holding power over others, and where they learn to transact power without violence.” Boys must learn to define their self-worth independently from their ability to dominate others or provide financially, Sahni says. The second principle that promotes a departure from toxic masculinity, she believes, is to work with boys to “construct, and finally, imagine an alternate system that is fairer and less cruel.” She urges boys to collectively imagine other ways of being.
What do you imagine this “other way” is? What will it cost you? I will leave you to the joy and pain of such imagining, but I will point you also to the fact that the old way has hurt you. I see the beast on your back. Toxic masculinity hurts you as much as the women and non-binary people around you. If you can embrace that freedom of re-imagining, perhaps you are ready also to embrace the practice of feminism. If you haven’t already, label yourself a feminist man. Not just a gentle, supportive man or empathetic man who is a good listener, or a man who will shoot out a #notallmen hashtag in the midst of the unprecedented moment of catharsis and political voice that women have finally arrived at with #MeToo.
What do you imagine this “other way” is? What will it cost you? I will leave you to the joy and pain of such imagining, but I will point you also to the fact that the old way has hurt you.
Educate yourself. Demand a feminist, fair, and complete education from your university. Fight the stereotype, find your sanctuary, fall in love, get good grades, love yourself. And remember to call home.
Sonora Jha is a professor of journalism and an associate dean at Seattle University. She is the co-editor of the anthology New Feminism in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature (Routlegde 2017) and is writing a book of essays on raising a feminist son.
