Deepika Sikri shares her experiences as a mother raising her sons to respect women.
Gloria Steinem once said, “A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.” Her words rang in my ears as I watched my son methodically measure flour for his signature chocolate chip cookies. Before motherhood, feminism was my well-worn battleground, complete with victories I thought were sealed and delivered. I had imagined raising fierce daughters who would shatter glass ceilings with their dreams. Life, with its delicious sense of irony, gave me sons instead.
My mother, my first feminist icon, showed me that women could do it all — manage boardrooms, perfect rotis and raise children without missing a beat. But in her superwoman cape, she unknowingly passed down an exhausting legacy: the pressure to excel at everything rather than the freedom to choose anything.
“There goes Mom, going off about feminism again,” my teenager sighs across our dinner table before launching into a passionate discourse about Ruth Bader Ginsburg between bites of his pasta. In that moment, I realized my greatest feminist achievement isn’t raising warriors for women’s rights — it’s raising boys who never questioned why anyone, regardless of gender, should be free to pursue their passions.
In my kitchen, my son’s hands knead dough not because I’m teaching him to “help women,” but because I’m teaching him to be human. Studies have shown that infant boys cry just as much as girls, a reminder that we are not born into rigid gender roles. Instead, these roles are imposed upon us, like ill-fitting hand-me-down blankets we never asked for.