Sonora Jha > Quotes

“We can snuff out toxic masculinity, which is defined as a cultural concept of manliness that glorifies stoicism, strength, virility, dominance, and violence, and that is socially maladaptive or harmful to boys’ own mental health. We can build a gentle and vital masculinity from the ground up. We can raise our children without gender stereotypes, perhaps even without gender binaries, so that they are free to experience and express the whole spectrum of human emotion. And we can be people of any gender building all sorts of family as we do it.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family

“A man can no more love the thing he fears than he can predict who he will be when fear arrives.”
― Sonora Jha, The Laughter

“There’s no arrival in feminism, only departures upon departures. In Seeing Like a Feminist , Nivedita Menon reassures me that feminism is not about a moment of final triumph over patriarchy but about the gradual transformation of society so decisively that old markers shift forever.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family

“feminism is not about a moment of final triumph over patriarchy but about the gradual transformation of society so decisively that old markers shift forever.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family

“Teaching a boy to expect to make mistakes and to expect to be held accountable when he makes mistakes is the key. Teaching a boy to be able to laugh at himself... wouldn't that be such a gift? Teaching him to to hurt at his folly, cry, feel empathy, feel shame, feel remorse, and to apologize, perhaps without demanding forgiveness is an essential part of a feminist upbringing.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family

“Feminism is a practice, and perfection is an illusion.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: A Memoir & Manifesto

“Feminism will help my son be in a rational fellowship. To this reasonable mother, that means that he will be given permission to be wrong sometimes, to fail, to fall, to cry, to be protected rather than always being the protector, to be provided for rather than always be provider, to seek and receive wise counsel, to be chastised as much as he is cheered, to be led to wild fun, to be held and to be held responsible, to get schooled and to get laid.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family

“What the Ansari incident is bringing up for women is that some women gave up their power and silently endured humiliating sex because of self-doubt. Or fear. Some, like me , guarded themselves to such a degree to avoid sexual encounters of this kind that we lost out on the joys of flirtation, of mutual seduction, of the pleasures of our own sensuality. We policed ourselves because we knew no one would come to our feeble call. We only partook when we’d checked all our boxes that said “Safe.” All of this is rooted in toxic masculinity. All of this is rooted in rape culture.”
― Sonora Jha, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family