Tasveer Author Meet with Sonora Jha
How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family
Novelist & Professor Sonora Jha, author of How to Raise a Feminist Son, will be in conversation with Alka Kurian, Associate Teaching Professor (UW) and Tasveer Board Member.
Through a series of courageous and moving essays, a feminist-media scholar, media professor, and mother boldly reckons with the responsibility of raising her son across two patriarchal cultures, and reveals what is at stake for all boys in today’s world, in this timely work— part memoir, part parenting manual.
“We are raising our girls to imagine themselves as president, yes, but what would it look like if our men were raised to cry their hearts out, in public, at an injury, at a tragedy, or a moving work of art?” asks Sonora Jha. “What would that look like, if not love?” In How to Raise a Feminist Son, Jha directs these inquiries at herself, as an immigrant mother of color reflecting back on the joys and challenges of raising her now-grown son, Gibran; as well as to her readers, ending each chapter with a list of to-dos that examine toxic masculinity, internalized misogyny, and the stories we tell ourselves and the boys we care for.
Known for her writing on the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements as well as her op-eds exposing gender inequality in America and her home country of India, Jha brings a journalistic rigor to How to Raise a Feminist Son. The result is a charged and personal addition to the urgently needed conversation about masculinity and a must-read for parents—no matter the shape their family may take—as well as caregivers, educators, and feminists of all stripes.