Moving beyond the doll: How can we raise feminist boys?

Browsing the toy aisle in Target last weekend, I overheard two young women talking. “What did you buy him for his 1st birthday?” one asked. “Oh!” exclaimed the other proudly. “We got him a baby doll. You know, I really just want to defy those gender stereotypes that say boys don’t play with dolls.” 

I smiled to myself, weakly. I remember buying my oldest son a baby doll as well, with the same intention. Normally, chatty extrovert that I am, I would have made an encouraging comment to the young mother. But I was (and still am) reeling over the horrific mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and I just didn’t have the energy to engage with a stranger. 

It got me thinking though. Did the 18-year old who murdered 19 children and 2 teachers at the Robb Elementary School, ever have a baby doll? What about the 18-year-old shooter in the Buffalo grocery store earlier in the month? What about all the men who have been involved in all the mass shootings? Were they just not given the opportunity to nurture a baby doll?

I hasten to add that I am in no way placing the blame for any of these shootings on the parents or people who raised these men. Mothers are already the scapegoat for all that is wrong in society, points out Jacqueline Rose in her book Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. This isn’t about any kind of personal failings of a mother who perhaps didn’t buy a doll for her son. This is about taking the conversation further; moving beyond surface gestures about buying boys dolls to encourage nurturing and questioning why we even have to have the conversation to begin with. What are the deeply held, perhaps unconscious beliefs that even allow for mass shootings to begin with? Could feminism hold the key to raising boys who don’t kill? 

Patriarchy

We cannot have a conversation about how boys are raised without talking about the patriarchy. But let’s get clear on what the patriarchy actually is. Patriarchy is an ideology, or belief system, that puts men in a higher position than women.  It is often an unconscious thing - very few people today are walking around going, “Oh yeah, men are definitely smarter and better than women.” But the reality is, this unconscious belief system has unequally distributed more power to men than women. This is seen in personal relationships, work life, spirituality, politics, and educational systems.

Feminism 

Feminism in its most basic form says that women are equal to men and should be treated as such. Expanding that, most people who identify as feminists today hold the belief that feminsim as an ideology is not just about gender equality, it’s about ending all forms of oppression - racism, ableism, classism, and so on. Feminism isn’t about bashing men, it’s about elevating everyone to equal status. 

Because here’s the thing: under patriarchy, EVERYONE suffers. Men are held to stereotypes that tell them boys don’t cry, their duty is to provide for their family as the breadwinner, they should be sexually virile and so on. These standards often require men to ignore their own emotions, be excused for terrible behavior, and can sometimes result in violence and aggression. 

Dismantling this system means first addressing our unconscious beliefs about patriarchy, and embracing a feminsit ideology that affirms that all humans are equal. If you don’t want to identify as a feminist, that’s totally fine. It’s a loaded word that many people shy away from (which is a conversation for another time.) But I think most people would agree that they believe women are equal to men, and for ease of simplicity, I’ll keep calling that feminism.  

How can men be feminists?

Well, it goes beyond just letting a woman pick up the check. Since men hold the majority of the power in a patriarchal society, men must be involved in the quest for social equity. For example, if the majority of hiring managers are men, they need to be educated and invested in how they can hire, promote, and develop women; as well as creating a workplace that is free from sexual harrassment, doesn’t discriminate against young women for their potential to become mothers, etc. Additionally, men can challenge the rigid stereotypes about what is considered “masculine.” Really, feminism comes down to a dissolution of gender itself - all humans are allowed to feel emotions and express themselves 

Raising feminist boys

Feminist men start as feminist boys. So here we get to the real question: how do you encourage your sons or the young men in your life to be feminists? Since my work is primarily focused on motherhood, how can mothers raise feminist sons?

Well, here are a few thoughts, each of which is worthy of lengthy discussion on its own. 

1. Model that the division of childcare and housework based on gender alone is  nonsense.

Every family structure looks different, but if we’re looking at the stereotypical nuclear family with a father and mother, there should be an intentional and conscious conversation about who will engage in what kind of work so that it is divided up evenly. That means Dad should be cooking, cleaning, filling out school forms, packing lunches, folding laundry, comforting boo-boos, running errands, managing after-school activity schedules, just as much as Mom. 

If you’re in a family situation where one parent works outside the home to earn an income and the other parent stays home to take care of all the childcare and housework, this conversation is even more critical. It’s all too easy for the stay-at-home parent (which is usually the mother, because remember, under patriarchy, women earn less money than men) to become the doer-of-all-things, and this carework is then taken for granted. If the income-earning parent gets to come home from work and relax in the evenings and weekends, then the stay-at-home parent should be relaxing just as much, because care work is also work that we need a break from. 

2. Move beyond the dolls to actively promote feminine values.

Yes, I gave both my sons dolls, and honestly, they never played with them. But it goes beyond the dolls and traditional “girl” toys. We tell our daughters they can do anything a boy can do…but do we tell our sons they can do anything a girl can do? 

Moving beyond the toys means we start to elevate traditionally “feminine” characteristics, because under patriarchy, femininity is not as valued as masculinity. We have to challenge our own unconscious biases about what we consider “masculine” and “feminine” and ask ourselves why we believe that boys act one way and girls act another way. All humans are capable of compassion, creativity, nurturance, warmth, vulnerability, generosity, fear, sadness and so on. There’s a disturbing belief among the far-right that masculinity is under attack, that boys are being coddled, and teaching them compassion is emasculating. All this does is reinforce dangerous messages that further entrench young men into believing that what makes them men is denying these human attributes.

Let’s abolish the saying “boys don’t cry.” My guess is that, if you’ve read this far already, you already know that. It will take practice encouraging boys to be vulnerable, compassionate, and creative, and it also starts with checking your own unconscious biases about men and feminine values. How do you feel about men crying in front of you? What’s your gut reaction if I tell you to picture a man braiding another man’s hair? What would you think if your male coworker proudly showed you the quilt he just finished making? Recognizing how the patriarchy has affected our own beliefs about how men are supposed to behave is a good place to start, because once we’re aware of them, we can start to unpack why we think like this, question if these thoughts still serve us, and decide what we want to do about changing our belief system around men and feminine values if needed. 

3. Address all forms of oppression, not just gender inequality

This is a big one. Patriarchy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and women aren’t the only class of people who are facing injustice and oppression. We live in a society of interlocking oppressions, namely: white supremacy, heteronormativity, extractive capitalism, imperialism, and ableism. Raising feminist sons means raising boys who are aware of their systems and are actively working to dismantle them. 

The good news is that no one is born prejudiced. It is something that is learned, and as such, it’s possible to unlearn it. Having conversations about these topics can be uncomfortable but necessary. There are a lot of excellent resources out there for addressing some of them, and I highly suggest checking out Raising Antiracist Children by Britt Hawthorne (which was just released!) and How to Raise an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.

Something to remember is that just like motherhood, social justice is a lifelong practice. You’ll likely screw up over and over again and you always have the opportunity to learn more and do better. And the more we recognize that, the more opportunities we have to build resilience, develop tools, and find community support so to help us in raising feminist boys.