Why meninism should be a part of new feminism

The other day, lawyer and author Amy Chua drew up a contract for her grown up daughters, specifying the conditions under which they could use the New York apartment she and her husband had made for themselves. I approve. Could we also draw up a contract for the boys we raise and how they should behave with us and other women?

Every day women are given advice. Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg tells us to lean in. The lawyer and political scientist Anne-Marie Slaughter tells us to lean back and let the husband become lead parent on occasion. Pepsi's Indra Nooyi tells us however much we achieve, we will always live with the guilt of being a bad mother.

Enough, I say.

Let's have some words of advice for our boys as well. Since we don't have Mother India's option of shooting the boys who go bad, and guns are illegal and we can't all be Americans, could we have a new mode of parenting that ensures that meninism gets as much attention as feminism?

Women will take care of themselves (and that, as we know, is half the problem solved). Could we possibly pay as much attention to the emerging masculinity, a masculinity that believes being a good son doesn't mean being a bad husband, that a good father is not someone who does a few parenting chores on the weekend, that a good man is not merely someone who "allows" his wife to work?

The "new man" is someone who is able to respect a woman as a boss, lover, wife, mother, sister, daughter; who understands that her changing role in the public sphere requires him to expand his role in the private sphere; who realises that life is a partnership, not a battle zone. That a gender war will benefit no one. That we need to start educating men now if they are indeed to keep pace with women.

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