Women of all ages should be grateful to their young, for they launched the long-needed movement for openness and free speech in India. Just after the hordes of India’s restless unemployed young were dubbed ‘cockroaches’ by the Chief Justice of India, they picked up the sobriquet and ran with it.Using humour, wit and their skilful handling of digital activism using social media, they turned the derision and undemocratic stance of the powerful system into their own indestructibility. Yes, we are cockroaches and we are cool with it! With that the first wave of their agitation soon turned into a tsunami, demanding immediate improvement of the nation’s flawed education system, and seeking the resignation of an education minister at whose desk the buck stopped.By and large, the response to this spectacular and globally noted agitation at Jantar Mantar was a mix of state retaliation in the form of a quick police crackdown, on agitators and, simultaneously, on mocking videos on Meta and other popular platforms.But when the prime minister appeared at midnight on Insta, he skipped over these ‘law and order actions’ against girls participating in the agitation. He proclaimed that it is he who was especially hurt by the personal slurs and bad language hurled at him by young women.Then he chose to forgive the betis (daughters). Then the Union education minister resigned, but a peculiar tension remained.Meanwhile, the criminal prosecution of some of the agitating girls continued: like the Zero FIR registered against a young female protester and the way another minor girl had to apologise on a video which was then made to go viral.The message was ‘girls must be girls’; never mind what the boys shouted – the females must never use language unbecoming of ladies!It was clear that obsolete ideas, made redundant by our liberal constitution, are still supported by our democratic institutions in the name of custom, tradition and family honour. Soon after this, news came of the gang rape of a young student walking home across a public park, and trouble erupted again. Large groups of young women took to the streets demanding safety for women on the roads and in all public spaces.‘Smash the patriarchy’ was their war cry. They were soon supported by young men and more women from all over the country, who are no great lovers of patriarchy either. The result was another bout of delightful lampooning with a medley of memes. Brand new slogans were coined by the officially ‘young girls’ against all the arrogance and paternalism they face daily when pitted against a male-centric society and state.The System is striking back again. A group calling itself Council for Men (sic) Affairs, raised the counter slogan: ‘Long live patriarchy’. They said patriarchy actually protects women, children, elders, family, society and last but not the least, the nation!Women’s denial of patriarchy was a denial of traditional marriage and responsibilities necessary for raising families (read sons) with good samskaras. How could home-makers leave all that tradition had built over centuries to lead a “life of self-indulgence”, they asked.Others followed on social platforms, claiming men worked harder, did more hazardous work and built the homes with their sweat and blood for women. And some had the gall to demand that the young divorcees asking for alimony must be punished by law. Men have been punished long enough for taking dowry, why must estranged wives now use their children to claim alimony and leave the bloke penniless and suicidal?A woman and a child walk in Connaught Place amid heavy security deployment and restrictions in New Delhi, Saturday, October 10, 2026. PTI PhotoThis backlash actually highlights the strength and scope for growth of women after they have reclaimed their democratic space and found their own tongue to say “Ek kachori, do samosa, inn mardon ka kya bharosa (One kachori, two samosas, who can trust these men)?”The new chapter in the feminist movement is in ferment and a clutch of new ideas and redefining of maternity is headed our way in 2026. These deserve further exploration in feminist terms: What do mothers of sons want for the sons they have given birth to and raised as men?Also read: Journalist Who Alleged Sexual Assault by Delhi Cop ‘Detained’ With 17 Others for Pushing for FIRI find in India that we have two kinds of mothers: mothers of sons and mothers of daughters. The first lot has a vested interest, consciously or not, in supporting patriarchy keeping sons close to themselves. And this is not difficult, given most fathers’ uncaring stance on raising children.But the first lot also believes in taking sons along even if their marriage breaks up. Their hope is that the sons who must grow up under the rules of a public ‘male’ world, will somehow become their trusted path to ‘influencing’ that world.Mothers of daughters are less concerned with this view. Society has reconciled most of them early on to losing daughters to men in whose choosing they have a smaller and smaller role now. And if the daughter heads for a divorce, their first instinct is to ensure her financial well-being, even it means moving courts to get her an alimony on grounds of her raising her children.What both kinds of mothers often fail to see is that traditional maternal emotions embedded in their conscience as girls may continue to prolong the ‘mothering’ of young sons, even after they have grown into men. And that can stop both his and their own daughter’s growth as a ‘whole’ being.The new woman who is telling men she does not trust him (kya bharosa?) has a point. But it is filling traditionally raised men with dread, even though the state tacitly agrees with them. Even men who left their mother to her own devices while they sought higher things in the Himalaya or in Delhi, cannot entirely shake off misogyny from their lives.So the question, what do mothers of sons want for their sons, finally comes to rest on what do we women want from men. And what do we demand from them as whole humans? I have no sons, but I have a young grandson and plenty of young sons of relatives in the family.I love them all and hope they have the courage of the young women of today. In both their personal and professional lives, these girls are asking disturbing questions and taking risks that most women in earlier generation shrank away from.Also read: Lessons in Male Rage from a 13-Year Trial and BeyondTo the more sensitive and intelligent ones among the lot on social media, I’d like to say: to be truly free is not only to wear comfortable clothes or use profanities like men. These are just lazy acts of defiance. To be free is to work hard at speaking and writing well and at length.With all the logic and data at hand, we can do it more easily now. We must also have moments or months) of thinking the unthinkable, risk being called ‘R***i’ or ‘K*****a’ or ‘gold digger’, or worse. It is time working women ensured the signing of clear pre-nuptial agreements that spell out in case of a marital breakdown, how to have a clean legal separation.There may not be many takers for this view, saying this will destroy the old emotional bonding within families, between mothers and their children. But at that point, just ask yourselves, through centuries of repeatedly losing earning potential while raising children, weren’t we often told by the state, religious leaders and also employers that women were polluted, domineering, masochistic b*****s and serial job quitters when emergencies arose?To understand and ponder over the power and powerlessness motherhood gives us, is to begin making real life choices.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.