How To Raise A Feminist Son

A topic that is so close to heart – feminism and how to raise kids whose values are rooted in equity and equality, especially the son. This book was a validation of many a thing I’ve always tried to do, as also who I am, with all my weaknesses and imperfections.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Sonora Jha takes us through her life, her years in India, her marriage and its break up, her father who was abusive and the brother who seem to have taken after him, the birth of her son, the angst and struggles of being a single parent and a professional, and her determination to bring him up with the right set of guidelines that she hopes will anchor him through his life.

Jha’s profession as a professor of journalism specializing in social justice movements and social media is reflected in the way she has structured the book. Well researched and interspersed with conversations with psychologists, experts, parents, other kids, each aspect of bringing up a child is explored and analyzed. She punctuates her thoughts with references to Hindu mythology, especially the goddesses, the intersectionality of feminism with caste and privilege as also the necessity and importance of having a support system, the proverbial village.

What was most heartening for me is her admission of being imperfect and errant,

“Feminism is a practice, and perfection is an illusion. You were a good feminist on Tuesday, you embraced a reparative ideology on Friday, but on Sunday your feminist friend may have gone ‘too far.’ You start over and over.’

her calling out the fears that most of us have as parents – how do we talk to them about sex (I’ve found it easier to talk about sex with my daughter than with the son), what if he slips up (a constant fear), what if I slip up (something that I repeatedly do) and how do i really know whether I’ve really succeeded in raising my son as a feminist, to name a few.

“Over the years, often with a sick feeling in my stomach, I realized I was not going to be able to raise a perfect feminist. I couldn’t fashion a boy or man who was wholly alert and engaged in the scrutiny, study, and practice of dismantling an immutable structure that offered him a paradise or privileges for having a penis and taunted him as a ‘pussy’ when he tried to so much as move a single spoke of said structure. What I could do was teach him to see when he’d slipped up, to hear someone when they said he’d slipped up, and to then fucking apologize. A tender, sincere apology, please.“

‘A tender, sincere apology’ – a lesson for not just the boys, but for all of us, whether parents or not, whether or not we are bringing up anyone. This is a manifesto to bringing us up as decent human beings. Period.

p.s. Should be added as a compulsory read in our schools and colleges.