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The Reelist is a column featuring Kristen Page-Kirby’s musings on movies. To read Washington Post film critic Michael O’Sullivan’s review of “He Named Me Malala,” click here

This past summer, I wrote about how I wouldn’t let my 7-year-old son see “Pixels” because I found its depiction of women deeply offensive. Many people took time from their busy schedules to criticize my parenting, arguing that I was making my son weak, a [kitty cat] or gay. And science does teach us that movies determine sexual orientation. I’m straight because of an early exposure to “Top Gun.”

It’s admittedly odd to go from Tom Cruise to Malala Yousafzai, the subject of “He Named Me Malala,” a documentary that is buoyed not by cinematic skill, but by its preternaturally inspiring subject. I thought about how, if I ever met Malala, I might ask her to sign something for my niece. I could mail it along with the Wonder Woman and Powerpuff Girls stuff I already send her in a steady stream.

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I never thought about getting Malala’s autograph for my son. Granted, the only autographs he would care about are from Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper or Batman (not Christian Bale. ACTUAL BATMAN). I just assumed Malala’s immense capacity for inspiration only worked for women. Why did I think that the story of Malala — a Pakistani young woman who, at 15, was so dedicated to the cause of education that she kept talking about it, to the point of getting shot in the head … and then continued talking — resonates only with people who have ovaries?

I want my son to be a strong man. And a strong man does not get his strength by ignoring, slighting or suppressing the strength of women. A strong man does not feel strong because the women around him are weak. A strong man reads Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” as the dystopian fiction it is, not as a how-to on running a country.

Strong men are important when it comes to raising more strong men. The best call I ever made for my son was choosing for him a father who does not “help with” the housework. Nor does he “baby-sit.” He does his share of the housework, and he parents. Strong women, though, are just as crucial to building a man who doesn’t see women as threats to defeat or as possessions to acquire.

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Right now, for my son, that role is filled by fictional women like Raven from “Teen Titans Go!,” who is cool because she’s half-demon, and Batgirl, who is cool because she knows Batman. I’ll tell him, though, about all the real women who have inspired me: Nellie Bly and Laura Ingalls Wilder and my Aunt Susan and, yes, Malala Yousafzai. Especially Malala. If, when my son is grown, he’s half the woman Malala is, I will know that his father and I have given the world a powerful man.

Read more The Reelist columns:

‘The Martian’ is a love letter to humankind

What do faith-based movies keep getting wrong?

‘Everest’ is an example of how to use 3D the right way

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