"How surprising is it to her-and any mother of sons-that her small boys have grown up and become men? I'm frequently shocked to discover that my own boys, who were squishy newborns just yesterday, have become enormous teen-age men. I was at Bread Loaf for a few days this past summer, and was sitting at dinner with the writers Carter Sickels and Emet North-both of whom have spent an enormous amount of time thinking about gender constructs and masculinity-and one of them asked me what it was like to be a feminist raising men in America. I said that I don't think it's possible to be anything but conflicted about it, if you're paying any kind of attention."
"Masculinity is a hell of a drug, served up with a heaping side of privilege and obliviousness, and I sometimes feel despair that maybe my sons aren't really listening to me when I tell them that they have to be aware that their bodies are immediately seen as a threat by smaller, more vulnerable people; that they need to understand the insidious ways that misogyny lives in them (to be fair, it lives in all of us, unless we work hard against it); that they need to check themselves when they have the urge to immediately refute something a woman is saying because knee-jerk negging of women is built into American masculinity, even when what the women are saying is correct."
A mother finds her home overrun with men: husband, builders, and her grown sons. She is startled by how quickly small boys become adult men. A dinner conversation with writers about gender and masculinity prompts reflection on being a feminist raising sons. Masculinity is described as intoxicating, bound up with privilege and obliviousness. The mother worries that her sons may not fully absorb warnings that their bodies can be seen as threats and that misogyny lives in everyone unless actively opposed. She urges them to check reflexive behaviors and continues to hope for the best. While walking the dog, she encounters a man and feels immediate dread.
Read at The New Yorker
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