First of all, I am one of you. I am the mother of a boy. I should say I'm also the mother of a girl, but since I love them both equally (as any mother does!), I trust that won't matter here. I'm an eager feminist, with a deep focus on childhood and a particular passion for masculinity. I say this so you know: I am on your side, even if it might not always seem that way.

I get it. It's scary out here. Maybe it's no worse than before, but now we have the data. Now we see it. Now we want to change it, and that makes it feel heavier.

Before, there was blissful ignorance. A script - harmful, outdated, but clear- that most of society followed. A script full of stereotypes, excuses, expectations and limited role models for masculinity. But a script.

Now, the script is breaking. For many, it's already broken. Others are clinging to its pieces, patching it up and pretending it's business as usual. There's a vacuum. A lot of questions. And again, fear.

I am a mother of a boy who, like yours, one day will be a man. A man like those I critique ruthlessly. A man like those I love dearly. My son is going to be a man, and I carry the responsibility of preparing him for that. The tools I give him now matter.

In my parenting book about gender bias, I wrote about the urgent desire to change the world once you become a parent. Because in its current form, the world is terrifying. But I also believe the best way to change the world is through our children. They will be the society of tomorrow. How we prepare them for that role is everything.

I know your son isn't a creep. I know he isn't one of those terrifying versions of men we hear about too often—the ones who rape, the ones who murder. I know he isn't even one of the annoying ones. The ones who unnecessarily touch your back at the bar. The ones taking for granted women's unpaid work in the house or the office. The ones who (un)consciously divide women into categories: wife material, sexual object or invisible.

But those men have mothers too. Mothers who will refuse to believe their sons are "those men." Of course not.

Rubiales—the ex-president of the Spanish Football Association—famously kissed Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent at the World Cup final. His mother locked herself in a church and started a hunger strike in protest of how the world was treating her son.

I know—you're not that mother. You wouldn't raise a Rubiales. And if by some freaky chance your son did what he did, you would be both supportive and realistic. You'd hold him accountable with compassion and kindness. You'd help him see that the world isn't wrong—he is.

But maybe part of the job is facing the possibility that our kids could become the problem. Protecting our sons from the shiny, self-indulgent, and simplistic rhetoric of misogyny is key.

I'm the mother of a daughter, and it's gutting to think she may be one of the 97% of women harassed or assaulted between the ages of 18–24. With stats like that, is not realistic to think that mine will fall in the 3% who didn't read the question properly.

I'm raising her to be independent. But I'm doing the same with my son. I want her to be confident—I believe confidence is crucial—but I want that for my son too. I'm raising both to be nurturing. Both to communicate well. Both to love unapologetically. Both to understand boundaries.

BUT—I don't pretend I'm raising them the same way to reach the same outcome. Because I am not the only factor in their upbringing. I'm not raising them in a vacuum, but in a world that CONSTANTLY and RELENTLESSLY reminds them they are a boy and a girl—and that those things are very, very different.

I raise my kids, and so do you, in a world where the boxes they're meant to fit are one-size-fits-none. Show me a child who matches 100% of the "boy" or "girl" expectations. Still, we use the parts they do match as confirmation bias. We strip them of their uniqueness and reduce them to gender.

I'm not denying that being a boy and a girl are different experiences. I am denying that those differences are mostly natural. They are mostly built by society—and we need to treat them as such. We can work around them.

Keep the good stuff, absolutely! I love that society encourages my daughter to be empathetic—great! I hate that it discourages her from expressing anger—so I challenge that. I model healthy anger. I talk (in age-appropriate ways) about how women's anger is silenced and why we need it. It moves us. Feelings tell us things.

I love that my son is encouraged to be brave and to trust his body—fantastic! But I hate that the world tells him sadness isn't his. So I go hard on creating space for that. I talk about emotions. I show him men who are comfortable with sadness, so he can be too.

Parenting boys and girls is different— but not because our children are so different, but because society treats them that way. Because the roles they must play in making a better world are different.

But unless we accept what we're fighting against, we'll let it keep happening. It will become their normal, just as it once became ours. (just as it is still for many.)

Mothers of sons, we have a responsibility. We can acknowledge how much our boys are suffering (and they are!), but we must do it honestly. We can talk about their pain while still knowing men earn more, dominate politics, the media, and positions of power. We can talk about boys' struggles without erasing their privilege. We have to hold both.

We must address what our boys are going through without pretending it's a separate conversation from the one about how men commit femicide, rape, and benefit from unpaid labour. (Even in straight couples where women earn more, they still do more housework.)

We need to understand that men are dying by suicide. That they engage in more reckless behaviour. That they delay getting help for mental or physical health. And be able to name the patriarchal structures behind this. We need to be brave enough to name the root. We need to be able to see that this conversation is part of the feminist conversation.

I care deeply about the conversation around masculinity. In fact I am OBSESSED with it. But it must be done carefully. Because done wrong, it can do more harm than good.

If we want to help our boys and make them part of the solution (for them as much as for others), we must be brave enough to face the possibility that they could become part of the problem, we must be precise with the story we tell. If we don't ask the right questions, we can't get the right answers. And yes, the right questions are harder. But they matter:

• ⁠What got us here?
• What is masculinity willing to give up in order to move towards where we want it to be?
• What is everyone's responsibility with the current situation? And our sphere of control to change it?
• How do men benefit from this system? How does this system hurt them?

And then, when we get an honest diagnosis we start looking for solutions, we try to dismantle the privilege and suffering that are so intertwined. For me, once I was able to see the whole picture, the solutions (not one but a mix of many) came easier.

It is time to admit that the old script no longer fits, and we have a role helping our sons to write a better one. They are not doomed to inherit this broken system. But they will—unless we raise them differently.

This blog is reproduced here from the original with permission from the author.