2020 ushered in a new era, highlighting the incredible imbalance that is still consistent throughout societies around the world today. Depending upon the color of your skin, the sex you were born to, or even the social class you inherited from your parents, you might be subjected to any number of biases daily.

Men still ‘rule the world’ in the sense that they hold that vast majority of all of the positions of power and leadership around the world alike. Men dictate the current climate of our culture in this way. Ironically, it is ultimately a man who decides how a woman is viewed and treated. Yet, every single man spawns from the loins of a woman.

While words like ’empowerment’ and ‘boys’ typically are not used together, it is my goal to change that. Many of the issues we face today are due to a lack of focus on empowering boys. Disempowered boys grow up to become egotistical men, leaving us all in a never-ending loop of constant upset.

What does an empowered boy look like? How does this ensure he will grow into an evolved man, who is both balanced and wise? This article will take a deep-dive into the importance of raising empowered boys, as well as highlight some practical techniques you can use right away to empower your son.

Google “empowered boys” versus “empowered girls” and simply scroll through the results to witness the obvious divide. The effort that is given to empowering girls is clearly lop-sided. This implies the general assumption that boys do not need focused attention to build them up; that they are getting their empowerment elsewhere.

Society is taking initiative to ensure the future generation of girls are empowered, but who is looking out for the future generation of our boys?

Growing up, we are taught that we are fundamentally the same. Throughout school, classes are arranged by age, not gender. We all receive the same education, midly touching on basics of what it means to be male versus female.

The fact that all of our systems sit upon foundations that were built by men alters the overall context quite a bit. The political, educational, and medical institutions were all created by men, for men. Yet that is exactly what’s causing the imbalance that we all feel. When you stop to consider the history of these institutions, it becomes obvious that women have never even been a consideration. Women and “women’s rights” were incorporated after the fact. Even now, we still find ourselves seated upon a foundation that promotes female disempowerment.

This has landed us all in a vicious cycle where the ‘men in charge’ are still deliberately disempowering the women who are raising our boys to men. From birth, boys are programmed to see females as inferior. This has caused a chain reaction that will only end if we start empowering young boys from an early age. When a boy is taught to embrace more of the feminine traits that we all possess, and he learns to utilize more of his right-brain talents, we all benefit in the long run.

Know Your Why

When you decipher the drive behind your desires, it becomes that much easier to carve out a path towards them. Knowing why you want to raise your son empowered is half of the battle. It propels you towards your goal because it provides clarity about why you want it.

Most people would agree that women make up the bulk of those doing the child-rearing. Married women have traditionally been the primary caregivers too, even when they maintain work outside of the home. Therefore, it is mothers who are the ones to take accountability and responsibility to raise her son empowered.

Male-Centric Institutions

Politics

There is an abundance of statistics that exemplify the average type of man living in today’s society. There are statistics that highlight violence, sexual aggressions, and other blatant discriminatory behaviors all directed towards the female species. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 5 women in the U.S. have been raped in their lifetime. That creates a very high probability that you know at least one woman who falls into this category, if not yourself.

When you consider that this data includes females from all walks of life, ages 12 and up, you realize just how systemic the underlying issue is. There are laws in most of the states that forgive the offender and punish the victim. Laws that were made by men, for men.

Even the less extreme examples of female disempowerment are bleak when examined. For example, taxing females for essential products while providing contraceptives free of charge to males is a blatant form of discrimination. The entire reason behind ‘pink-tax’ is because tampons and pads are considered “luxury” items. Yet in some states, medical care products, which include Rogaine (which fights male baldness), are exempt from sales taxes.

The gender pay gap is yet another example of discrimination. While females have consistently out-performed males in the education arena for the past nine decades, we still only receive $0.82 to every dollar a man makes. A man with a bachelor’s degree out-earns an equally credentialed woman by about $26,000 more annually. These numbers become even more bleak when you factor in the female’s race.

“At present, our country needs women’s idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.”

Shirley Chisholm

Now, stop and consider what our political systems would look like if empowerment was systemic. If emphasis was placed on teaching our young boys self-love and an appreciation for diversity, division would naturally dissipate.

Education

Women have not always had the luxury of attending educational institutions. In fact, the only reason females were ever given access to formal education was because of the largely held belief that it would enhance their abilities to be a good mother and wife.

From the very inception of the American education system, women have been intentionally left out. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that women were granted the right to an education.

The earliest schools were segregated by sex, and the earliest texts were too. In much earlier times, boys were taught to read and write, while girls were merely taught to read. This was to ensure that as grown women, these young girls would not have the ability to forge their own signature in lieu of their keepers, i.e. father or husband. Additionally, girls were only able to attend between the months of April to October.

The courses that were offered to females were geared towards making them a better domesticated citizen, such as home economics and industrial education. While the courses offered to boys were to prepare them for work in the public sphere, including science and math.

A surge of females began to seek out higher education in the 1930s, eventually exceeding men in enrollment. Within forty years, women went from uneducated to exceeding their male counterparts in higher education achievements. Since then, females have consistently held top-ranks of academic success.

Yet the deeply-rooted biases towards women run deep through the heart of society, making female advancement a non-existent facet in most regards. Women earn 6 out of 10 Bachelors degrees, yet females still earn an average of $16,000-20,000 less than their equally-qualified male counterparts.

Women have proven they’re passionate about education by not only exceeding the standard of female education but also by serving as the largest population to work in this area of social service. Just imagine what we could do if there were more empowered men in leadership roles, who allowed more of a female perspective in the education sector. What a wonderful world that would be.

Medical

Most people assume that in the twenty-first century that the latest scientific research and data would be inclusive, and we have made great strides in that area. According to 2019 data, for the first time in our history women comprised the majority of first-year medical students. However, this detracts from the fact that the system rests on a foundation that was primarily built by men for men.

Dating back to ancient times, women have always played a role in medical practices. It was customary for women to partake in most medical interventions, most especially pregnancy and childbirth. Midwives were considered the experts on the female body and birthing process. Midwifery was even considered a noble profession, notably for women who dominated the field.

It was when the male-centric scientific approach was adopted that this all shifted. As scientific bodies grew, so too did the “business of medicine.” The focus was more on hard data and facts and left absolutely no room for intuition and physiology. Men comprised all elective bodies that founded and supported all things related to the profession of medicine.

Midwives were completely denounced, as was anyone offering medical care without proper licensure. Women who were once lerry of receiving prenatal care from a man were suddenly only seeking out the expensive expertise of men working out of hospitals. During the economic boom in the early 1920s, women with any amount of wealth preferred doctors as opposed to “lower-class midwives.”

Since women were historically banned from obtaining higher education, this made it even harder for women to succeed. There were but a few institutions that made exceptions for but fewer females. When Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female admitted into a U.S. medical school, she would naturally go on to become the first female to receive her medical degree too. She was a pioneer for women who wished to pursue higher education. She changed the game entirely when she opened her own female medical school in 1868.

A female’s tendency is naturally to create institutions and constructs to provide vital care to the community she comes from. Throughout history, you can find numerous examples of women forging ahead and challenging status quo in order to modify ideals to benefit the masses.

Even today, much of the research that our medical foundations rely upon was conducted on a mostly male demographic. Women run on a completely different biological clock than men, yet our entire societal structure caters to the male species. Women operate on the same 24-hour clock that men do, called the circadian rhythm, but women are also shown to have a shorter intrinsic circadian period, making them biologically more susceptible to experience days that are shorter than 24 hours.

A 2016 study concluded that women fall asleep and wake earlier than men by an average of 2 hours. This study clearly demonstrates that women and men operate on a different circadian rhythm. In addition, women also operate on a second time-keeping rhythm called the infradian rhythm.

Simply look back at the past 10 years as evidence, women’s hormone and autoimmune conditions have gone up by 50-percent. Alisa Vitti, author of “In the Flo“, states that this is all due to the fact that much of the medical research still ignores female physiology.

Empowered men know the value a woman brings, and therefore they naturally tend to be more inclusive. The need for a system that values the other half of our population is vital to us all. It all begins with teaching young boys humility and respect for women, starting with the women closest to him.

Empowerment Begins at Home

Ultimately, it is men who will need to take action in order to improve the situation for us all. However, women are the ones raising the young boys who eventually grow into the men in power. It seems only natural that empowerment begins at home.

Empowered parenting promotes equal treatment towards both sons and daughters. An empowered mother teaches her son to value his body as his temple in the same way she would her daughter. Empowered parenting demonstrates the power of leading by example.

Though we have the courage to raise our daughters more like our sons, we’ve rarely had the courage to raise our sons like our daughters.

Gloria Steinem

Define Standards: Feminine vs. Masculine

Our current culture promotes behaviors that are associated with the left side of the brain, i.e. masculine. The left brain is connected to logic, sequencing, linear thinking, mathematics, facts, and criticism. Just take a look at our current paradigm to see evidence of favoritism towards the masculine traits. Science, math, and technology are valued overall.

On the reverse, right-brain characteristics are known to be associated with emotions and intuition. A major study showed that women are significantly more right-brained than men. These attributes include creativity, art, music, visualization, ‘big-picture’, and free-thinking.

Isn’t it obvious that is what is lacking in society? People have become so abhorrently focused on self and ego that they have completely surrendered the emotional, soulular self resulting in a power-driven, individualistic society. Hence the phrase, “each man for himself.”

Women are the feminine Yin to the masculine Yang – the perfect compliment. Conceptually, Yin is rest, slowness, the quiet and heavy; while Yang is moving, active, buoyant, and forceful. A society that is balanced with both would have the capacity to thrive beyond measure.

Empowered women know the importance of raising their children to respect both the feminine and masculine attributes. Our children are the future of society, the ones who will rewrite the standard of living moving forward. Whether they grow up empowered or disempowered is ultimately what sets the tone for us all.

Learning to Embrace Emotions

Emotions tend to carry a bad wrap. We’ve been taught that emotions are a feminine trait, and expressing them means that you are soft or weak, as if that were a bad thing. Females are dismissed as emotional, and unstable as a direct result. While men who cry in public are shamed, or at the very least, prejudged.

We have been greatly misinformed, and it’s been to our own detriment. Emotions are powerful, measurable chemical responses to life. We all have them, and increasing emotional intelligence is something that we could all benefit from.

Dr. Joe Dispenza compares the ideal process of emotional expression to that of a child. “Watch a child when they experience disappointment, fear, frustration, or anger. They emote completely, and then they’re finished.”

Self-awareness is the key to self-regulation. And self-regulation is a byproduct of emotional empowerment. In understanding what emotions are and the purpose they serve, people naturally become empowered.

Teaching your son the power of his emotions is essential to his empowerment. He has to know that it’s natural to have emotional responses to life and that it’s also natural to express them. Emotional expression has even been scientifically shown to improve health.

Create Perspective

Women tend to underestimate the power of their influence over their sons. They respectively give their power away by thinking they have none. It’s hard to be a parent at times, with or without support, and often times mothers feel they can’t relate to their sons as they navigate through the changing tides of life.

Perspective is everything. Since you can never truly understand what it is to be a man, the best you can do is educate yourself about the phases your son inevitably passes through. This will equip you as situations or questions arise. There are numerous ways to enlightening yourself to what a boy goes through as he grows into a man.

As a single mother to a son, I utilized my son’s male Pediatrician to provide me with information regarding male puberty. I also enlisted him into the Big Brother, Big Sisters program, to engage with a male mentor on a regular basis to help him increase his awareness of male perspectives. I reached out to his school for male-centric support. I kept him actively enrolled in sports and I capitalized on the male coaches for additional support.

Empowered parenting also involves teaching perspective about the opposite sex too. It’s imperative to educate your sons about the different types of phases girls pass through, and to be sensitive to the plight of a female.

In the end, empowering the future generation of our male leaders begins with the women raising them. Women make up the bulk of those doing the child-reading, whether single or with a partner; doesn’t it make the most sense for them to take the lead on this issue?

The best way to lead is by example. Demonstrate to your children what an empowered woman truly looks like, and through the clarity of your own example, they will naturally follow. Mothers, never underestimate your power to make a difference.