Cultivating True Desire

Teaching our sons not to be misogynists

The word misogyny became part of our sons’ vocabulary before they learned to master multiplication. Given the abundance of testosterone in our house (three sons, no daughters), one of our parenting priorities became teaching them what it meant to respect, value, and honor the opposite sex.

There were times when I took this mission a bit too seriously. I remember the drill sergeant tone used as I communicated to my young son after he refused to heed a girl’s no on the playground; “When a girl says no to you, immediately stop what you’re doing. The first time she uses the word. Do you understand?” She was disinterested in ramming construction vehicles together; I was projecting to his dating years.

Along those lines, we asked our sons not to date until they turned sixteen hoping to spare their potential girlfriends the heartbreak that accompanies sexual involvement without the requisite maturity to undergird such choices. We expanded the culture’s narrow grid for beauty so that they would be free to appreciate the inherent beauty of all women, regardless of their nationality or body type. We hoped that our intentional parenting would allow our sons to see women as equals and never objectify or take advantage of them.

It should come as no surprise to learn that I loathe the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. It serves women up as sexual objects available for consumption. I’ve often wondered if the models, who I’m certain are lovely women, understand how they betray both themselves and their gender by agreeing to this objectification.

The message sent by their seductive eyes, often enhanced breasts, and hairless bodies, is a dissonant chapter in the narrative we’ve offered our sons—one that’s been impossible to skip over. Years back, as my son and I approached the grocery checkout, his eyes riveted on the beauty gracing that year’s SI cover. He looked at her, and then plaintively at me, and back again. I flipped the magazine around in the rack. On the drive home, he asked, “Momma, why was that woman posing in such a weird way? You always told us that women should keep their breasts covered in public unless they are nursing but I didn’t see any baby. Why was she doing that?”

How could I possibly explain to my then six year old the complexities of human brokenness, of why a man might prefer a flat, one dimensional representation of woman in place of an actual flesh and blood human being? How could I despoil his imagination with the reality that one day, he too might be faced with this temptation?

I fumbled for words. “Relationships are hard. Remember how you believed that your stuffed animal was real? How you would talk to him and play with him especially when you were frustrated with your brothers?” I saw him nodding in the rear view mirror. “Sometimes men want to pretend too so they look at those magazines and imagine that the models are their girlfriends or wives. These imaginary friends don’t make trouble or ask for anything. Didn’t Max always do whatever you wanted?” Again, he nodded. He then got quiet and looked out the window for some time.

Finally, he asked, “Don’t you think adults who pretend like that get lonely and bored?”

“What makes you think that?” I punted back.

“Well, sometimes you are mean which Max never is but you also read to me and make my birthday cakes and take me to the playground. Max can’t do that. If I had to choose, I’d pick you over him.”

He got it as a six year old.

Josh Larsen wrote in a Think Christian article, “When Barbies – or Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues – cultivate our desires in a way that drowns out what God would have us desire, we’re headed in the wrong direction.”

My sons and their generation have the opportunity—and dare I say, the hunger—to lead culture in a different direction. One that esteems, respects, and honors women. I hope and pray that they look to God rather than contemporary culture to cultivate those desires.

This is one from the archives. My creative energies are currently focused on finishing my book on misogyny book for Harper-Collins/Zondervan, which is due in three short weeks. (Gasp!)

PS: I’m happy to report that all three of our young men (now 30, 27, and 24) have internalized these lessons. They are all amazing men who respect, honor, and defend women.

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