This post is dedicated to Ruth Moss, who put up two posts both of which prompted and contributed to this one.
In her most recent (because, of course, I never quite managed to finish my response to the older), she poses the question:
…surely in that Glorious Utopian Future gender won’t matter at all anyway? Why would I treat my kid any differently than a girl if he turns out to be making the journey along the “path to manhood“?
And the answer is, of course, that men rape (among other things; in this post I will primarily be focusing on rape, although this argument is equally applicable to the fact that men beat, murder, attack, and abuse).
Not all men, of course, or most men, not even only men; but, in overwhelming majority, rapists are men, and far too large a minority of men prove they are capable of rape.
As Ruth put it so well in the older post, the only way to stop rape is: “Men refusing to rape. That will stop rape.”
I have a son. He is a boy, who will grow in to a man.* He will have the potential to rape. The only way to be sure he does not become a rapist is to make sure he learns not to rape.
That is the difference between raising boys and raising girls: we need to raise both of them free of gender stereotypes and arbitrary gender roles, but to ignore their sex and the roles their gender will push them toward in society is as ridiculous a proposition as raising children “colorblind” in regards to race: all it does is reify the dominant paradigm, prop up racism and sexism and the entire kyriarchy, because we cannot fight what we do not acknowledge exists. In this case, that is the truth that some boy children will grow up to be rapists.
This is something a lot of parents don’t want to think about — I know I would really rather not. This is my perfect little baby we’re talking about! And he is; he is beautiful, and sweet, and loving, and empathetic, and caring, and absolutely perfect.
Of course, every baby is perfect. And yet, some men are rapists. Somehow, perfect babies grow up in to men who rape. It would be so easy, so reassuring, to hide behind the lie that it couldn’t happen to my baby, that I don’t have to think about that, that that only happens to those other people and their defective children. But that line of thinking is just another tool of the patriarchy, trying to defend itself; if it can just make us blind enough, we’ll do all the defending it needs for it.
No, the only way to make sure that my boy does not become a rapist is to teach him not to rape. And that starts now.
Ruth also asks:
…I do think we have influence. Or at least, I hope we do. Because I don’t want my kid to grow into One of Those Men. So where to start?
It starts with teaching him that no means no, and that only yes means yes. It means that even though his best friend is almost a year older than he is (just-3, to his over-2), and taller, and larger, and more energetic, and arguably more aggressive — even though she is all that, he is male, and she is not, and while I don’t encourage her to walk all over him either, I do insist that he really listen to her noes, or make sure he gets yeses, when he wants to hug and kiss and touch and play with her.
It starts with teaching him that I have boundaries and limits and needs, too; this is a tough one, because I also believe that the more a child’s needs are unconditionally met now, in infancy and toddlerhood and childhood, the better off they are for a lifetime. I encounter this conflict primarily when he needs to nurse (often it is a true need, whether for nutrition or liquid or comfort or sleep) and my body is feeling touched out. I’m not sure where the best balance is between these two needs, but I know we will both be better off for trying to find it together, rather than subsuming myself entirely to his demands.
And yes, as Ruth points out, it also starts with teaching him that his own feelings matter, that his own noes are respected, that those who are bigger and stronger do not get what they want through force and committing violence upon those who are smaller and weaker. Remember, the patriarchy creates rapists by raping them; it creates soldiers who can look at a person and see only a soulless enemy by first dehumanizing them; it creates bullies by bullying them when they are younger. The most revolutionary thing when raising a boy, then, is to protect and respect his humanity; not place his right to personal agency on a pedestal, or place him at the center of the universe, as the patriarchy does, but to ground him in soul-full humanity, help him grow up centered in his own being, capable of saying “namaste” to others because the divine is still in him to honor the divine in others.
In short, and coming back down from my culturally-appropriating neo-Pagan high, raising not-rapists means raising our boys womanist/feminist, protecting them to the best of our power from the damage the patriarchy would do to them.
I’m not saying I know exactly how to do all this. I don’t know exactly how to balance his needs for me and my need for me, or wanting to encourage him to be friendly with wanting to ensure he gets permission from others first, or his need to be fully human with recognizing the ways in which male privilege structures only him-as-male as fully a person. And I’m sure there are more aspects of this endeavor that I haven’t figured out yet. But I do think these are good places to start.
*Probably. The odds are certainly enough slanted to him being a cissexed male that I must, in this post and in parenting him, take certain actions based on that assumption.
