We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak -- a hard man.
In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with meager pocket money. Yet the boy is expected to pay the bills, always, to prove his masculinity. (And we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.)
What if boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not "the boy has to pay", but rather, "whoever has more should pay". Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means.
But by far, the worst thing we do to males -- by making them feel they have to be hard -- is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.
And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.
We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.
But what if we question the premise itself: Why should a woman's success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word -- and I don't know if there is an English word I dislike more than this -- "emasculation".
A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me.
I was not worried at all -- it had not even occurred to me to be worried, because a man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.
Still, I was struck by this. Because I am female, I'm expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don't teach boys to do the same?
-- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "We Should All Be Feminists"
This lady has a fixed spot in my favourite ladies list. So brave. She writes this stuff that I (and I'm sure many other women too) already think and feel and experience on a daily basis, and makes it so clear and stark and apparent for the world to see. Unapologetic about the way she feels. Whereas, I, even to quote these bits on this blog, hesitated.
Some time after I finished reading Chimamanda's essay, Terry Crews (of the famous Brooklyn Nine-nine) gave a testimony as a man, joining the #metoo movement, recounting his own experience of sexual assault and then giving a very passionate account at the end of this clip about his growing conviction against toxic masculinity.
I cannot tell you how much this warmed my heart. 💗 Thank you, God! for men like this.
They exist, and it's sad that I often feel like they don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment