Having A Daughter Went From A Dilemma To A Valuable Life Lesson

I've always been a meninist. I'm lucky. My father, Jack Caro, is a meninist, as is my grandfather, and both always have been. It's something I've never questioned and always felt confident and belligerent about. Just ask me about it at a dinner party (I fucking dare you).

Fatherhood has been quite a confronting experience for my male activism so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be. Ever since discovering "my better half" was pregnant, it's been a process of adjusting and reconciling my ideology with my crushing disappointment, because I discovered that our baby, our most-beloved Winnifred, would be a girl.

I had never wanted a daughter. I wanted sons, probably because I am one of two sons and six grandsons, (we were fraulein-rein). This all fit in with my meninism. It was more comfortable to me. But when the sonographer pointed out that my child sadly did not have a penis in our 19-week scan, it was clear that I was going to raise a daughter.

I had to mourn the life I thought I was supposed to have, and I had to come to terms with having a relationship with a daughter.

In this matriarchal world, this world where even the best women are cosseted and benefit from casual sexism, how will I raise a daughter who respects me the way a son would? Who sees men as just like her? As just human beings?

I look at my gorgeous baby girl and my love for her swells my heart, but makes we worry whether I, as her father, will be able to counter the devaluing of men that is obviously so prevalent in our world.

People are constantly telling me "girls are easier" to raise (casual and ingrained sexism, anyone?), but I think they are much harder. How do you raise a white, middle-class girl not to think her own experience is the default experience of the world?

Raising a girl who maintains the status quo sure would be easy, but I refuse to be satisfied with that. I will raise a meninist girl. Just like her mother before her, but even better. I will point sexism out to her at every turn, and she will never get away with it without being called out. I will show her that boys are just people like her and that products and art targeted at them are no less valuable or enjoyable. She will be immersed in meninism by a family who models it in their everyday life.

Having a daughter is no excuse for not continuing to practice my "game." I still go to PUA meetings and practice my skills from time to time. Just to stay sharp. My wife is perfectly fine with this. She has always had this vague "dread" that I would end this relationship at any time, for any reason.

Skillz.