adminSO much effort has been spent on empowering women to assert and liberate themselves from patriarchy that the plight of men has been forgotten. Men have been isolated and insulated from this process of transformation and in so doing the status of women has not changed significantly.
Police reports, newspapers, pro-women organisations and people on the street bear testimony to the unwanted fact that women are still victims of sexual and domestic violence. The reason for this status quo is right before our eyes though we choose to ignore it — the problem is that men are not seen as part of the solution to gender violence.
In the male-female equation, women are clearly the victims and the problem is clearly men. Yet more attempts have been made to change women than to change men. Empowering women, discouraging discrimination and violence against them, setting up women’s organisations, legislating to protect women’s rights and ensure their protection have been some of the steps taken in this direction. But surely the biggest change of all must come from the perpetrator rather than the victim?
Men are seen as part of the problem, but unless they are seen as part of the solution and the process of transformation, no significant change in the status of women will occur. Changing the male mindset is key to women’s liberation. Men too need to be liberated from the shackles of patriarchy. There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in viewing the “women’s issue” as a “gender issue” by all concerned — men need to be seen as part and parcel of the gender issue.
Harish Sadani, the founder of Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) in India believes that changing men’s patriarchal, chauvinistic and often violent attitudes is the key to eradicating domestic and sexual violence against women.
“Changing the male mindset is a key aspect to women’s liberation. Men also need to be liberated from the shackles of patriarchy,” he said.
Patriarchy, apart from disadvantaging women, brings with it a set of behavioural norms and responsibilities that hinder men from expressing their fears, problems and vulnerabilities. Men often become violent, aggressive and uncaring due to patriarchal modes of socialisation. Images of masculinity are linked with being strong and violent and to notions that men with “power” are “real men”.
“We need to address how men analyse perceptions of masculinity and create appropriate alternatives. There is a woeful dearth of safe platforms to talk about problems that give rise to violent behaviour, including those relating to issues of gender and sexuality. There is also a need for positive male role models who are gender-sensitive and can engage young men in the discourse.
“While the importance of changing norms and attitudes related to masculinity is widely accepted, there have been few sustained efforts at doing so. We must challenge perceptions of dominant forms of masculinity in men at a young age,” said Sadani.
There have been many battles won for women but the war is far from over. Reality is far more nuanced. Women are getting degrees and doctorates but they are still victims of all forms of violence. They are bosses at work ,but at home they cower into submission at the sight of a knuckle.
In other words, political and economically empowered women might be making significant strides but the regressive social policies of the patriarchal world still exists and they feed off the terror that elite, patriarchal men have of losing their foothold on power. Where will these poor alpha men fit in a changed world where women are equal to men? Will they feel appreciated? Will they still be valued? Will women still view them as men and husbands who expect to come home to a cooked meal and to a wife and mother who raises their babies?
If men continue to be seen as the enemy, not friend, in this cultural war to do away with all forms of female abuse the conflict will be lost. The profound overhaul in the way men and women interact has seen women change dramatically, but many men have not changed much because there has been no revolution that demanded it.
A peevish, grudging rancour against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism. Men’s faults, failings and foibles have been seized on and magnified into gruesome bills of indictment. Ideologue lecturers at universities indoctrinate impressionable undergraduates with carelessly fact-free theories alleging that gender is an arbitrary, oppressive fiction with no basis in biology.
Men have never had a true men’s liberation and it shows. They still have the mentality that women are their property hence the failure to eradicate sexual and domestic violence. If men are truly included in the gender revolution it could benefit women enormously.
Men are struggling to navigate changing gender relations and expectations especially in Africa and in this case Zimbabwe. While it is accepted that it is not only men, but women as well who struggle to inhabit new roles and live in ways not dictated by an outdated cultural script, it is the ordinary man who is mostly affected because he has not been ideologically reoriented to accept women as his equal.
While it is true that men have lashed out at women because of the tumult created by the cultural shift in gender relations it is false to suggest that women are to blame for that. The women’s movement is not the enemy of men; instead it can serve as inspiration for a new generation of men who want to rewrite masculinity.
This new generation of men can only be realised if the women’s movement fully integrates men. If that is done, the man that emerges will not be the beast who violates the Rights of women.
There is a substantial section of men who want to maintain the status quo – in their eyes women will always be beneath them. These men are pissed off that there are laws that prevent them from beating their women. They are angry that women want to be seen as equal to them. To them, this gender discourse is nonsense. Men don’t need to change a thing – they should keep those patriarchal qualities that define their masculinity.
It is these backward men that need to be coaxed by the women’s movement to realise that there is nothing to be gained by keeping women in the cage and everything to be gained by moving forward and embracing the emasculation of women. The evidence that putting men at the forefront in gender revolution can yield positive results can be found in Europe where a level playing field has been achieved at home and in the work place. In Iceland it took a male prime minister to achieve the highest level of gender equality. The Nordics have even reached a point where men can take three months paternity leave. Nine in 10 Icelandic men take time off with their babies.
A lawmaker, Drifa Hjartardottir, described that gender law as “one of the biggest and most important steps taken towards gender equality since women’s right to vote”. Such a major shift in public policy and corporate culture also occurred in Norway and Sweden where it took; you guessed right, male leaders to pass similar laws. It was a man who championed Norway’s boardroom quota obliging companies to fill at least 40 per cent of the seats with women.
Would a female Spanish prime minister have been able to appoint a cabinet that is 50 percent female in 2004? Celia de Anca, IE Business School, Madrid, thinks not: “When you want to change a culture it’s easier for a representative of that culture to sell the change.” In other words, men are more effective feminists than women because stubborn men are more likely to listen to them. In Africa and in Zimbabwe this message has not filtered through which is a pity.
In France, for example, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques made gender studies part of the core curriculum for all students in 2011. Deloitte France started an initiative to educate men on staff about gender diversity. A handful of companies, including the nuclear giant Areva (run by a woman) have put men in charge of gender. These achievements clearly show that the last frontier of women’s liberation is the liberation of men.
It was always the proper mission of feminism to attack and reconstruct the fossilised social practices that had led to wide-ranging discrimination against women. But surely it was and is possible for a progressive reform movement to achieve that without stereotyping, belittling or demonising men. History must be seen clearly and fairly: obstructive traditions arose not from men’s hatred or enslavement of women but from the natural division of labour that had developed over thousands of years.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter