We know that a boy’s personality is something that is built: masculinity is not innate, and stereotypes are formed through education, games, culture and references. We teach boys to be insensitive, aggressive, indifferent and competitive, instead of teaching them to be empathic, caring, compassionate, respectful and to live with appropriate levels of self-esteem. Quite often, we are unaware of the way that boys learn to be boys, and this is because the patriarchal system has structured our society in such a way that we do not even realise this in most cases.
Over the last few centuries, women have begun to reconsider their place in the world through the feminist movement, and they have fought to achieve a more just and fairer society. And what have men been doing in the meantime? Unfortunately, they have not reacted to male violence and the injustices that women have been the victims of. Men have not mobilised to give up their privileges.
Educating Boys in Feminism is an invitation to take a different look at how we educate boys. The aim of the book is to detect and change many of the mistakes and injustices that we repeat unconsciously. We need to educate boys to become thinking and autonomous individuals, free of any gender construction and the roles that society has handed down.
