Why Every Teenage Boy Should Be A Feminist
as a young kid
absolutely obsessed with all things food
i could have never imagined that my love
of rich indian curries with buttery
garlic naan
or my never-ending craving of baja fish
tacos would lead me to have a platform
to reach
millions of people as an advocate for my
other passion that happens to start with
an f
feminism my journey to being a loud and
proud gender equity advocate
did not come about because of any
personal injustice i fortunately was
never the victim of discrimination
nor any of the women in my life it ended
up though that the lack of exposure to
the issue
was the very thing that eventually
brought it to my intention as a young
kid i naively thought gender equity was
a given
i could have fathomed that there were
people who truly believed women do not
deserve the same opportunities and
rights as men
this disbelief grew into an anger that
ignited a fire within me
i soon became dedicated to the cause and
proudly called myself a feminist
but before i could even begin to become
a true influential advocate for gender
equity
i actually spent a great deal of time in
what stereotypically a woman’s domain
the kitchen as a kid i was often
bored by the traditional jewish food my
mother cooked at home or the chicken
nuggets mac and cheese and fish sticks
that i was expected to love as a kid
sure i love a good bowl of cheesy pasta
who doesn’t
but i wanted more i wanted to experiment
with new spices and flavors in a way
that my parents just didn’t know how
and while my family indulged my culinary
aspirations by taking me to restaurants
of all different cuisines
it was still not enough to satisfy my
literal and metaphorical hunger for more
so at the age of nine i became
determined to make these more exotic
foods myself
through extensive trial and error and
lots and lots of dirty dishes
i fell in love with being in the kitchen
not only was it a space where i could be
creative
but it also had the added bonus of being
able to make the food
that i’ve always craved and as my
friends began enjoying baseball
video games and other traditional
pastimes for boys my age
i further pursued cooking the same joy i
saw my friends feel when hitting a home
run or beating a super hard level in
their video
game i felt throughout every step of
cooking from start to finish
cooking was just sheer bliss for me and
while you never know by looking at me
because i have the
literal metabolism of a racehorse i’ve
always been obsessed with food and
constantly eating
and discussing cooking and thinking
about food
after about a year cooking’s no longer
just a past time of mine
it’s a full blown obsession i didn’t
have pictures of famous sports players
on the walls of my bedroom or game
consoles littering my floor
instead i could be found watching
documentaries about northern versus
southern indian cuisine or learning how
to make
an authentic mexican stew on youtube i
had posters of food network stars all
over my room and under my bed
were not baseball cards but dozens and
dozens of indian pots and pans
that we didn’t have room for in my
kitchen no joke
at the age of 11 on a complete and total
whim i applied to be on the first ever
kids episode of chopped
and much to my and everyone’s surprise i
got on
at the time i was excited to be on tv
but was oblivious
to the multitude of opportunities and
the eventual career that would emerge
from this experience
after my episode aired on the food
network my mother suggested i start a
food blog to document my culinary
adventures
it was the perfect idea i know it’s
something that could keep up with my
endless energy and excitement about food
an audience just as passionate about
cooking as i was
surprisingly my food blog and instagram
page did very well from the start
the more i saw people enjoying my
content and my following growing
the more time i devoted to the creative
process of recipe development
in addition to dedicating more time to
the actual cooking
i also put a great deal of effort into
making each post educational
i would research the origin of the dish
and share with my readers all that i
learned about the various rich cultures
and histories
from across the globe as i developed
more recipes for my blog
i realized my iphone camera was just not
adequately capturing the stunning colors
and details of my dishes
i saved up money bought a professional
grade camera and some gear
and fell in love with the art of food
photography i love being able to
create a story with my food pictures
from the linens to the plates to a
single flower in the very back of an
image
every detail was carefully curated to
convey a message and encapsulate
a moment in time as my production
quality advanced
the range of dishes i could create and
the number of recipes i shared did as
well
and through it all a growing online
community was following me along my
journey
throughout the process i treated my
social media and blog
as not only a hobby but a business i
made schedules of what and when i would
post and kept to those deadlines as if
they were as strict
as the ones for my school assignments
that meant rather than indulging in
lazy sunday mornings i set my alarm for
7 a.m eagerly jumped out of bed and
started my day with the hopes of
accomplishing
as much as possible my sundays consisted
of prepping food for that day
shoot setting up the props for the
pictures cooking styling
photographing the food editing the
photos developing recipes for next
week’s shoot
and so much more soon i started
capturing the attention of
local press and even national companies
became interested in sponsoring my work
i was invited to host cooking demos
around the country and began to view
myself as not only a chef
but an entertainer as well i loved and
still love
educating people and sharing my
enthusiasm about food
and as i wondered how else i could
further share my passion video seemed
like the natural next step
so i started making youtube videos for
my own channel where i hope to convey my
recipes and excitement about food even
better
around this time i started catching the
attention of leaders in the digital
space
suddenly while still a young teenager
i’m getting invited by executives at
and facebook to visit their new york
offices for meetings
both myself and my cooking are being
featured by many of the biggest media
publications and my work is being
recognized
by many of my idols as time went on my
following grew into the hundreds of
thousands
but what took my career to the next
level was when i started a tick tock
account and grew it from zero
to a million followers in just four
months with short form
high energy cooking and food comedy
videos to date i built a community of
over 1.3 million fans across social
media
but my platform is no longer exclusively
about food
somewhere along the way as i began to
mature into a young adult
i began to have a lot more in my mind
than just food i could have easily
continued posting my new content
according to the recipe for success that
i’d spent the past few years perfecting
but i wanted to do more i recognized my
voice had influence
and it carried with my following as it
grew rapidly
at this pivotal time in my own
adolescence and social media career
i decided to switch up my usual
narrative rather than exclusively
discussing my latest recipe or new
favorite food
i chose to also share my views about
various polarizing issues
especially gender equity i began to
educate myself and share what i learned
with my followers
hoping to create a starting point for
transformative dialogue
through all my learning what shocked me
the most was that there were many people
who didn’t understand or value gender
equity
for me was something i’d always felt it
was it was the only thing i ever knew
before giving this talk i spoke to my
mom about she remembers about my journey
to becoming an advocate for gender
equity
she told me it seemed to have happened
pretty suddenly as young children the
only reality we know is the one
immediately around us my reality was i
had a mom and dad who as far as i knew
were viewed to the world as equals
as i’ve always seen them my whole life
my father’s occupational therapist and
my mother is a high school math teacher
who also
is the head of the math department
everything from income to household
chores to child care
were juggled by both my mom and my dad i
wouldn’t even say it was necessarily 50
50 because everyone in the family
regardless of their gender helped out
with everything in some way
so my parents didn’t frown upon my early
interest in cooking it
wasn’t even a question whether they
would support it or not
as a young child i had no understanding
that my mother not only being a teacher
of higher math education
but in a role as department chair was
far from normal
in many parts of the world once i got
older i learned in school and online
about the inequality due to gender in
the world
and i was honestly shocked by ignorance
and naivety due to my young age led me
to know
only of a world in which all women and
men were treated equally
as i learned more about women who are
denied education and other
basic privileges and human rights in
many countries
and the inequality that has existed
throughout history and still exists
today
might anchor towards this flawed society
only deepened
i was appalled and wanted to know what i
could do to do more to raise attention
and personally help that is why i would
never say
i became a feminist i’ve always been
somebody who strongly believed that
women and men
are equals but eventually realized that
that belief was not unanimous
just like there’s no word for people who
support something as logical and vital
in life such as
breathing i didn’t even know there
needed to be a name for believing in the
equality of the sexes
i had never known there was a concept of
feminism because i couldn’t comprehend
that being a feminist
wasn’t a given sure as a teenager who
has a full-time career outside of social
media
i’ve had my fair share of times i wish
i’d have to go to school however
i didn’t realize how lucky i was to have
access to education
it just baffled me that whole societies
don’t see the many downsides of not
educating half the population and
denying them equal rights
the more i learned the more questions i
had why should any individual be denied
the pleasure
and excitement that comes with academic
inquiry
why can’t they discover their own unique
talents and passions that might lie
outside of the societal norms
of what they’re supposed to do it felt
to me that they were in essence being
denied the right to create and live
their own lives
with no hope in the near future of a new
reality because too few people knew
or even cared that these injustices were
occurring
now i know i might be the least likely
person to be a spokesperson advocating
for gender equity
how could i with my upper middle class
background and private school education
experience
have any idea about the struggle of
young women in countries
i’ve never even been to there were a
thousand reasons why i was not the
person to speak up
but one compelling reason why it should
be me because i cared and could use
my privilege to amplify the voices of
those that don’t share in the same
privileges as i do
the very privilege i could have easily
taken for granted was a basic human
right i had to stand up for for others
on international women’s day in march of
2018 i did my first
official instagram post about feminism
up until that point i had talked about
it before but never as
overtly as that day the day before i
made a custom
feminist shirt because after lots of
searching shocker
i couldn’t find any boy-sized feminist
shirts i stepped outside into the snow
yes it was snowing in march to get some
good lighting and had my mom snap a
picture of me brandishing my homemade
feminist shirt
i then spent the rest of the day writing
my caption to share my message about the
importance of being a feminist
as articulately as possible i knew the
audience i was talking to and wrote
accordingly
i needed this message to resonate with
people who
normally sneered or looked down upon
feminism
they needed to hear why they should care
and what they can do once they do care
part of my post read a common
misconception is that gender inequality
is a woman’s problem
this couldn’t be more false it is a
human problem
because when women are educated and
treated as equals all
of humanity will benefit just imagine
how much greater the world would be if
50
of the population weren’t held back when
women are uplifted so is the world as a
whole
after that first post i continued to use
my platform to address gender equity in
numerous other ways
the most public stance i took was a
video i posted both on youtube and
titled why every teenage boy should be a
feminist
a title that was unfortunately
controversial
i started off the video by saying hi my
name is etobernath i’m a 17 year old
male and i
am a proud feminist then for the next
four minutes i tried to calmly but
passionately explain my point of view
in a manner intended to resonate with my
audience
especially other boys my age i talked
about the inequities that exist in this
world
for those that weren’t aware then
explained why they should care and then
once they care
how they can help the video was met by a
lot of support from both fellow boys my
age as well as mothers
sisters and fathers who were eager to
show the boys and young men in their
lives
why they should care as well i have
never and will never
have the intention of being a male
savior and therefore am
very careful how i say things and what i
say in order to never portray that
however i truly believe in order to get
an even
more amount of people behind a cause a
diverse set of advocates is needed to
speak to a diverse set
of potential future advocates i just
don’t think the video would have had the
same effect on boys my age
if it weren’t coming from a peer now
don’t get me wrong the response was not
all positive
there were many people that used the
comment section as a forum to either
spread their misogynistic views
or just hate on me for speaking about
this by calling me all sorts of horrible
names
i was called a plethora of misogynistic
slurs that i
definitely could have gone the rest of
my life without knowing one even called
me a soy chugger
referring to the estrogen in soy that
according to them
made me less of a man for caring about
women’s rights
rather than letting that hinder me from
continuing to be an advocate i took
these comments as proof
that there was a lot more work to be
done clearly there were a lot of people
out there
who needed to learn that caring about
women’s rights doesn’t make you any less
of a man
in the subsequent months i contributed
to various women-centric charities and
encouraged my followers to donate as
well
promising to match their funds i firmly
believe
in the importance of monetarily
supporting the cause
in addition to the vitality of creating
dialogue
lastly i try to support female
influencers and cookbook writers
by calling attention to their work
background and when possible their
struggles
though social media posts reach billions
of people i believe
the most important way that i advocate
for gender equity is through one-on-one
conversations
with other young men from my experience
in doing so
it seems there’s a misconception that
feminism is about hating men
and thus young men feel disconnected and
turned off from the conversation
in our conversations i try to explain
the concept of misandry
or the notion that men are inferior to
women which is often confused with
feminism
when in reality the two ideologies are
complete opposites
i strive to break down their
misconceptions and educate them on the
feminist movement and its goals
as well as to bring to their attention
the various injustices in the world
lastly i remind those who i speak with
that gender inequity
is not exclusively a women’s issue but a
societal issue
whose influence extends to both society
today
and future generations moving forward
posing on social media is a great way to
reach a large number of people
but the real work is done offline
without the public watching
without enacting on your advocacy in
everyday life you’re simply partaking in
optical activism
to me being a genuine advocate means
calling out people in everyday life
no matter how uncomfortable it is to do
so for me that means calling out other
guys
that i hear saying misogynistic things
about women donating a percentage of my
income to fund women’s educationary
education in countries are traditionally
denied access
questioning things i’m taught to believe
and ultimately making sure
that i speak up for women being treated
unfairly in all parts of my life
and while not everyone has a platform
that’s massive that they can spread this
vital message nor is everyone in a
position
or an environment in which they can
proudly vocalize these opinions
i encourage everyone to do what they can
to bring attention to this cause
and help us in our fight to establish
women as equals across the globe
thank you