My feminist calling: raising good men who value women

"To be a mother of a son is one of the most important things you can do to change the world. Raise them to respect women, raise them to stand up for others, raise them to be kind." – Shannon L. Adler

As a younger woman, I always thought I’d have a strong, independent daughter who would be by my side fighting against the patriarchy. Who knew my life would be surrounded by boys?

On this last day of Women’s History Month, I want to share my feminist calling: to raise sweet, sensitive, thoughtful, fun, creative, and interesting men who value women.

I share this calling with my sister, an internal medicine physician, whose own wonderful three sons form an extended brotherhood with my three.

Women’s rights have advanced considerably since I started my career. In my first corporate job, it was common for men to hire a stripper when another manager had a birthday…and we were all invited to watch. Why did I never protest, you ask? My own internalized sexism and naivete. The few women managers had struggled in a male-dominated engineering field and were not about to risk their own careers to speak up.

I didn’t experience much outright direct misogyny. The sexism was more subtle. In one of my first performance reviews, I was told by two male managers that (1) I had been too hard on our reprographics operator who was taking an extended break instead of printing my proposal that was due in an hour, and (2) that I should be more assertive!

Another time I showed up on a Saturday morning to work on a proposal, and a rude man from another firm demanded coffee. I was too dumbfounded to answer. My colleague Brad Hermanson stepped in and said, “I’ll show you where the coffee is, Ron.”

I’ll always be grateful for all of my male mentors for having my back. We need more of them!

Running into Brad many, many years later

Nowadays the sexism is (mostly) more subtle. At my last company, the CEO had a huge batik painting of bare-breasted women in his office. He claimed he wanted women’s equality to be his legacy and initiated a pay equity study and DEI initiative. But he upheld and maintained a sexist culture by refusing to empower women leaders or create meaningful opportunities for them. The executive leadership team was nearly all white men, and a women’s affinity group attempt was shut down by the lone woman on the leadership team.

The CEO and other leaders’ supposed support of DEI was all a front for maintaining the patriarchy.

Shortly before I left the firm, I was brought in as a token woman leader to interview two candidates for our new HR director. Both were highly qualified candidates, and I gave a thorough assessment. Weeks later the CEO and other senior leaders cancelled the requisition, saying neither were “a good fit.” My boss declared his disdain that one of these women asked for a salary higher than his (a claim the HR recruiter told me was false).

Sexism (and racism!) in business is often cloaked as “not a good fit.”

We still have so far to go. It’s disheartening to see degradation of women in the workplace, in the words and actions of Republican politicians and evangelical pastors, and across the world in sex trafficking, media and culture, violence against women, erasure of women’s reproductive rights, and the list goes on.

In the 1800s, abolitionist and suffragette Lucretia Mott said,

"The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source."

America can never be truly great until we recognize the value of women and repair the damages of patriarchy and white supremacy. Women are much more likely to know this in their bones, as seen in the voting gender gap in the last four decades. That’s why raising good men is my feminist calling.

We desperately need more men who value women and are not intimidated by their success…and I have a husband, three sons, father, two brother-in-laws, and five nephews who fit this description.

My sister, sister-in-law, and I all make more money than our husbands, and my husband and his brother were both primary caregivers while their wives were breadwinners. This is how you raise strong, sensitive young men who will be loving and kind…by surrounding them with male role models. As my sons and nephews fall in love, I see them supporting their partners in their careers like their fathers and uncles have done.

Eighteen years ago, I wrote in my blog:

One of (my sister’s) sons is an expert coffee maker and vacuumer, and one of mine loves to wear feather boas and dress up like the Wicked Witch of the West. They are all loving, affectionate boys, love their moms and dads, and are not hesitant to express their feelings or thoughts openly. If they can retain these qualities into adulthood, I will deem our child-raising a great success…and the world will have six more wonderful men…a fantastic feat indeed.

Here they are now! 

Raising great men! (All of my incredible sons and nephews, two partners, and one niece (missing one niece)...these people give me hope for the future!

*Shared by Roxane Gay in her book, Bad Feminist, originally from Kathy Bail’s 1996 anthology DIY Feminism

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