"Protect Your Daughters" Has Never Been Enough. Why Aren't We Talking More About Educating Our Sons?

For the past few days, I have been absolutely sickened by what happened at Cornell University. I won't go into the details here, but if you haven't read the news, please read it (and prepare yourself to feel absolutely gutted, infuriated and physically ill).

This is a story about so many things. Violence. Lack of consent. Accountability. Injustice. Dehumanization. Bodily autonomy being stripped, forcibly and violently, from one women...and a sign that it isn't afforded to women in general. So many other things.

But mostly, I think, it's about how deeply all our systems have failed women. Our medical system. Our justice system. Our educational system. Our social system. It's everywhere, and it starts at the very beginning.

I'm the mom of a boy and girl, and I always hear that it's so much harder, so much heavier a responsibility to raise a young girl. To protect a young girl. And yes, I worry about my daughter and her safety every single day.

But protecting out daughters is not enough. It has never been enough.

It's time to change the script: It's not just about protecting our daughters, it's about creating a world in which our daughters aren't so vulnerable. How do we that? By making sure our boys grow up to view women as human beings. It all starts with that.

It's about raising boys who understand the essential nature of consent. Who don't just know it's wrong to ever, ever do anything to a woman's body without this consent, but who also feel called to step up, to not sit idly by while other men violate it.

This is a big, big responsibility — the kind of responsibility that can quite literally change the world if we get it right. And if you play any role in raising a boy, it's your responsibility to carry.