Raising a Feminist Boy
Because we are responsible for the man he’ll become.
I was born in a macho society, in a generation where the roles of gender were very well differentiated and established. The 80s was a decade that carried change and revolution. I was raised to be a strong and independent woman. Female was the future.
While a wind of change was blowing, life felt the same. I remember the fear in my father’s eyes whenever he gave me a speech about how I shouldn’t let any men get in my way. The tenacity with which he insisted on my education and on being the very best in my studies. The anguish impressed on my mother’s face when I started dating boys and being sexually active. The vigorous protective side of my brother when we went out to party.
While my family only had the best intentions and want to keep me safe, it only made me feel wrong. Unfitted. Lacking.
It made me realize that being a woman meant not being a man. It meant I lacked something, many things. This made me furious. It made me fearless.
To challenge that feeling, I wanted to be the woman who changed everything. A disruptor of the status quo. I said to myself that if someday I had a daughter, I would raise her to be whoever she wanted to be. I would have raised her to be strong, feminist. I would raise her without…
