Reading Keguro’s post “On Silence” I was struck by something that has been bothering me for a while now.
As a man I feel disgrace that on what is essentially my watch, i.e. in my years of manhood, it has become more dangerous for women to be women in our cities, in our towns, in our villages, in our homes. Rape, beatings, domestic violence on the increase.
As a man I feel disgrace that on my watch, in my years on manhood, a woman can be stripped naked in our capital city simply because some other men do not like what she is wearing.
As a man I feel disgrace that on my watch, in my years of manhood, whenever we drive to shags you have to spilt the men equally between the cars and ensure that you do not drive overnight if you have any women or children in the cars because of the evil that is out there.
I can not stand it. It is a failure of our manhood that this can and is happening in our society. Heck it is a failure of my manhood. It is a simple as that. I do not care if society globally is getting more violent, that is not an excuse. If more men are beating women in our society then that is a failure of manhood in our society. When did we lower standards to this? I am a man because I tear of a woman’s clothes in public. When the hell did that happen?
It is high time we, the men, started dealing with the root causes of this. If you are frustrated, angry, annoyed, worried about your life/job/whatever and instead of pulling yourself up to have another go, you turn around and take that frustration out on the people closest to you and yet physically weaker than you in our society i.e. our women then you are disempowered a lot more than you know it, my brothers, a whole lot more.
Pamoja Tuangamize Ukimwi
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8 comments
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January 19, 2006 at 5:52 am
bimo
This is definitely a topic that hits very close to home for me.
Seriously it is a disgrace, we say we want equality when the men of our society dont think we are good enough, they want to rape us, want to attack us w/ our kids. Its very sad that a woman cant walk on the streets or take a trip w/ her kids w/out a male figure to protect her. I truly agree w/ mental when u say that men who care or are bothered about this need to do something about it. Most of the time u dont know how bad it is till it hits close to home, unfortunately.
January 19, 2006 at 8:21 pm
helenism
You don’t know how it feels to me and many other women I’m sure to hear a man’s point of view on violence against women. Your thoughts are a flicker of light and hope that there will one day be no tolerance for aggressive behaviour against women in the world. Men need to stand up and say what you’re saying because it just doesn’t have the same impact when women say the same things without such advocacy.
January 20, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Mentalacrobatics
Thank you both for your comments.
January 20, 2006 at 8:57 pm
rentstrike
There is a US organisation called Men Can Stop Rape that is a good model of men taking action to end violence against women in their communities. In patriarchal cultures, men give other men permission to abuse women. Silence is complicity. For the violence to end, men must (1) not rape or batter women *and* (2) shun and disempower those who do.
January 21, 2006 at 2:53 am
Rebecca
Thank you for your post calling men (including yourself) to practice true manhood by acting in defence of the weaker!
It reminds me of a speech I heard by Frank Peretti. Today he is an author who has sold millions of books, but when he was a child, he suffered from a disease that caused his tongue to be huge and black. Additionally, his disease made him smaller and weaker than all the other boys. As a result, he was abused by his schoolmates constantly. At the end of his speech, he said, “Maybe God has made you bigger or stronger or more powerful than other people. He did not do it so that you could take advantage of weaker people, but so that you could Defend them.”
Thank you for taking a stand on behalf of true manhood.
January 23, 2006 at 1:42 am
Mutumia
Oh wow! Violence against women is a “human problem” and it is wonderful to hear a man stand up and say:Yes this is something that affects me too.
Thanks Mental…
January 23, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Ms K
Mental si you know you’re my hero? Aki I have a big ki-waru in my throat right now. When I see you remind me to give you biggest hug!
Oh and I have heard of your gallantry from other quarters. I salute you!
Ps/ Simu yangu imedeadi I’m not snobbing you.
@Acolyte
It is not what you can do against millions but what you can do period. You see, there are probably a million others like you who wonder what they can do. Bingo, equation balanced. Millions against millions.
You start with those closest to you, and move outward. Never despair.
January 30, 2006 at 11:18 pm
soul
This is why I call you brothaman.
Because right here… right here…
is where you show it with every single post.. passion, opinion, sense of fair play, comedy..
But right here, right now.. this is why I call you Brothaman.
peace.