Time for our sons to be feminists is now.

“My dad can cook and clean.” My teenage sister insists that her friends are always dumbfounded by this statement.

According to the culture we live in, something is not right, when, an educated middle-class man or any man whatsoever, cooks, cleans or nurtures and tends or his family.

I’ve seen people cringe, too, whenever I’ve brought the subject up, and expressed my view of wanting to see more men be like my dad. It’s really not that big a deal for my dad to roll dough for chapos while mom applies cooking oil and turns over the round, flat, brown spotted bread on the heavy black pan.

When my siblings were younger, I watched dad bathe, change nappies and dress them, before swinging them to calm during a temper tantrum and tuck them to bed. It was not spectacular, but normal. I’m a grown woman in my late twenties I still cook side by side with my father whenever I’m home or whenever he visits me at my place, again, it’s really no big deal.

Now it seems that issues of gender have always had ways of flaring up tempers, especially when we talk about balancing opportunities for males and females, but on the concept of shared domestic roles? It’s something else completely. Civility simply jets out the window and in enters outright anger, defensiveness and blocked ears and minds, unwilling to take in contrary opinions with the defense that ‘things have always been this way’.

Internalized patriarchy? You bet.

It is always such a big deal!

Whenever I’m in polite company, and the subject of gender say sneaks into the conversation, and say, I tell someone that I don’t see the reason why a man won’t cook or clean or be a nurse, I’m always given that ‘puh-lease!’ kind of look with eyes rolling faster than a boulder down a slippery hill.

Men in my family, and I understand they are a minority, have never had separate duties from women and this dates back to the three generations right from my grandpa, dad, uncles, brothers and cousins. My late grandpa, Mzee Amayi Sr.―may his soul rest in peace― was a very progressive man; with macho and sensitivity resting side by side. Not only did he serve in the military, but not a single domestic duty was out of bounds for him. He cooked and cleaned in the evenings after work, in his home, side by side with grandma. There was no such thing like ‘grandpa is the head of this house, therefore he can enter the kitchen’. I remember him as a man who always offered me a shoulder to cry on, without sparing the rod when the need arose. He was the strongest and the most sensitive man I knew, and I’m saying this well aware that we live in a culture where one would never be caught dead with the words ‘sensitive’ and ‘man’ in one sentence.

So I grew up that way, viewing men and women as true equals; a shared humanity if you may. Not once in my life have I ever believed that women’s chores were different from men’s in any way or that the proverbial kitchen was a woman’s place. I’ve seen my uncles do as much in their homes anyway, sharing domestic chores with my aunties etc. it has never been an issue to raise eyebrows for.

Before I entered my teenage years, I was gender unconscious, always thinking that the world is working right, because in my home there was no place that was designated or out of bounds for anyone.

As time rolled out, so did my vision for the injustice that was going on around me, from neighbors, friends and other relatives. I have a friend whose father would rather be caught dead than step in the kitchen, let alone cook a meal for himself. I’ve had the same experience in the past with some men, where someone would rather sleep hungry than go to the kitchen and cook. How weird!

Growing up, I never quite referred to myself as a feminist because first, I didn’t see gender inequality up close and candid, two, I never knew the name at the time. When finally learned that name, I was confronted with a difficult choice of referring myself as a feminist due to the heavy baggage that has always come with it, or owing to the unfortunate fact that even now in Twenty-Fifteen many still use that noun interchangeably with the noun misandrist, a confusion continues to baffle me beyond words. I mean seriously? Google is only milliseconds and a keypad away!

So my grandfather was a feminist, and so is my dad and uncles even though they don’t refer to themselves by that name, because they believe in the equality of the sexes. We should raise more boys like that.

The reason I’m talking about the men in my family is this; society, and especially men themselves think that by locking males up in some Precambrian gender roles that they are somehow helping men.

The truth is, masculinity as we’ve traditionally known it is becoming too hard and too suffocating a principle to comply with or live up to; binary, too cagy, too hard, too inhumane, too demanding, and ultimately plain unlivable.

No wonder three out of every four transgender surgeries are performed on males wanting to be females! And as much as I stand with the transgender communities and the right of every individual for self-determination and full rights, men are suffering too, just like girls from these ridiculous traditional gender roles.

When people, especially men, are imprisoned by society such that they can’t be free or be their truest selves, with the premise of not wanting to emasculate men, then we have a problem.

And the best way to solve any problem is to admit that there is one.

We associate masculinity with this binary, rigid, emotionless, caged state that our males have to live in.

We don’t realize the kind of harm we predispose our sons to by sticking to these hard old-fashioned ways of what it is to-be-a-man. The tragedy today for most males is living up to those standards.

Gender has always been a great injustice to girls rolling back to many centuries back, and until the seventies, no one would ever have imagined a girl being given the same tools to negotiate life as the boy. I’m grateful for the strides have been made to try and narrow the gap between males and females, hence enhancing the true humanity of girls, especially in regard to policy and socialization, even though the fight is far from over.

The good news is that forty years on, many parents are now raising their daughters like boys, but how many of us actually have the guts to raise our sons like girls?

We let girls wear pants, but how many of us can truly let our boys be their truest selves without being afraid of an overhanging drone of judgement and shame?

Girls are venturing into traditionally men dominated fields of mathematics, science & tech, business, politics and athletics, but nobody is encouraging the boy child who is interested in arts and other ‘traditional not-so-masculine fields’ to follow his heart and pursue his dream and no one is assuring him unconditional support through it all.

Our girl astronauts are rocketing off to the moon, many are becoming world star athletes and presidents of countries and corporations while simultaneously taking care of their families; but how much can be said of the boys in terms of taking up on more of what was originally perceived as feminine fields?

For example, how many male nurses do you know?

I commend the CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg who has just taken a two months paternity leave effective from last week to care for his newborn daughter Max. Many will say, ‘but oh, Mr. Zuckerberg has the resources and time to take time off’, but class and privilege aside, how many of our men would take up a two months paternity leave and use it appropriately?

Even with the two weeks paternity leave given here in Kenya, many spend a large chunk away from home, if not as far off from the child as possible, wasting their days in bars, watching back to back football matches, drinking beer all night long with the boys or attending daylong sports festivals because home just sucks yet it’s the place where the offspring and the wives are. Anywhere but home, they say.

It’s called paternity leave for a reason.

It means taking time away from a busy schedule to be a father and a real caregiver by having direct and constant contact with your offspring and loved ones. We are alienating our sons from humanity, just like we’ve always done and there’s no concerted effort to do it any different.

How many of us can let our baby boys play with dolls and do kalongolongos the way we let baby girls play with cars, bikes and trains?

How many of us can let our sons learn the most important skill that any human being should have, and that is to nourish oneself by preparing one’s own food even in a house full of girls?

How many are teaching our sons to be caregivers and nurturers?

How many of us are teaching our sons that shaming women’s bodies is wrong?

How many of us are teaching our sons that sex is not something a man takes from a woman, but rather, a give and take experience and that sexuality is something both men and women have, not just men?

Do we tell our sons that promiscuity and prostitution is not just a woman’s vice?

Because until we truly raise our sons to bear equal responsibility as our daughters, then our dream of becoming a truly equal and a just society will only remain a mirage.

Catherine Amayi is a Scientist and an Author

I invite you to follow me on twitter @catherine_amayi or write to me on ccamayi@yahoo.com