If I was raising a daughter I think maybe it would be more straight forward, but how do you raise a feminist son? The best I can come up with is that his father and I set a good example of what feminists are. I think a lot of it is pretty easy. We teach him he can be anything he wants to be and support him in whatever he wants to do whether it's what culture deems to be "gender appropriate" or not.
He's just 17 months so how to raise him a feminist isn't something that really comes into play at the moment. When I mentioned to a colleague how much he loved Lady Gaga she asked if I was worried that this was giving him a poor template of what a beautiful woman is. I'll give you that Gaga is very thin, but he doesn't see Gaga as anything other than someone who sings songs that he likes. I realize as he gets older I will have to temper what the media shows him and help counteract the poor messages most mainstream media sends out about women.
For right now I think all I can do is be a feminist myself and let him follow the example his father and I set for him. Sure someday I know I'll have to get into it more deeply with him. I'd hope though if I teach him what's right and wrong, how to respect others and all the other things you should teach a child regardless that he'd find his feminist identity on his own.
I don't think my parents particularly set out to raise a feminist daughter, but they certainly have one (if not two) of them now. I'd like to think that positive and supportive parents raise feminist children whether they set out to or not. Or am I being too naïve?
Raising a Feminist Child
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