Men Need Empowerment too; Don’t Lose Hope Yet.

I was perusing through a copy of the Sunday Nation when I caught a glimpse of a topic in bold letters about the “new breed” of kept men. I read through it with a lot of interest because all matters of gender touch on me; victim or not.

I got to learn from the article about this breed of men who are willing to stay at home and let the woman provide. The stay-at-home daddies. This breed of men is the true fashion of modern African men taking risks in their absolute sense.

Claims from the single independent women state that the young men are the ones willing to bend the borderline, be kept and drink from the financial grip of the older mamas. Sure times have changed. Gone are the days when the man was the CEO of the home.

I usually wonder about the place of man in the family once in a while from the very beginning, For example, looking at the story of Ahab in the Bible, one wonders whether he was a man in charge because he allowed Jezebel to run his affairs and that resulted to the death of Naboth.

That aside, it becomes logical at least, on the periphery, for the woman to take charge of relationships and home affairs in our current age because both genders are equals in the equation. Seems this is not new.

But then, what happened to the African man I grew up seeing? The head of the family. What happened to the spiritual lord of the house? The high priest of the home as in ancient times. I can only speculate that the take by society to assume the muscled boy has to win always has something to do with the changing times.

Failing to win for him is condemnation. I have seen a lot of women empowerment programs, especially locally (as well as globally), that have neglected the boy child making him very vulnerable. It is akin to saying that since men have enjoyed headship by default for a long time, it is time for women now.

This is very visible in the little observations I have made (at least locally) in the cities of Mombasa and Nairobi and such towns as Nakuru, Kilifi and many others. You can be sure to spot the hopeless boy child conspicuously even though we have grown to think they are fighters from birth to death beds.

I know that quite too well. I am a man. Society expects a lot from men. I have been brought up to understand so. I work as much as possible and the little I can make, I know it is for me and society. I was trained to be a man as I grew up.

It is the man’s role to be the head of the home, he is to provide for the family and offer protection and direction to the children and the wife (contestable though). He has to be there. He has to work so that the family cannot lack. It is me and my generation.

africa-foundation-child-1600x900 — **The boy child needs serious empowerment now more than ever.** **Photo courtesy of Africa Foundation.**

Today this training is becoming a core challenge for the boy child. In our time, our daddies were there to imbue in us those priceless gems of knowledge about what it meant to be a man. We agreed to take the lessons head-on and work them out in play.

So, the modern men (fathers) work themselves out to be the men they were trained to be by their fathers. Others spend much time drinking in distress because they didn’t sign up for what they found in fatherhood and husbandhood. This is what is resulting in absentee fatherhood that is bringing the boy child to utter ruin.

The boy child ends up detached at an earlier age because the father has ignored him and society has closed its eyes to his problems. Moms have a lot of time with their girls on the other hand. Those who miss the parental glamour have society to champion them and roll to their rescue.

Society empowers them because as the ‘weaker sex’ they have to be tended to. Empowerment has thus endowed the girl child with confidence and power she lacked decades ago. We can agree it has enabled them for a change that has become for the better of our societies.

I think that even as we empower the girl child, the boy child should not be left out. Leaving the young men out makes them fearful, feel ignored and lost which makes them lose self-esteem and all they can do is not stand in the face of our great women of power. The solace becomes the drink and drugs.

The boy child is losing hope that he can’t stand head high as he used to because nobody seems to notice him. It is like trying to shout water when everybody else is shouting wine. You will end up recoiling to a corner and let the winners take it all. Older men should mould the younger ones and society should empower them as much as the girl child.

Imagine what society will look like if the boy child can stand head up and in equal measure to the girl child in their undertakings. It may have to be the near-perfect society we have often craved for. The story of a threatened boy child will be a thing of the past. It will mean equal freedom for both genders. That is how gender disparity can be made history.

Right now a boy child cannot talk at times because the girl child ‘can stay or do without him’. Is that how it was supposed to be? The days of ‘I can’t stay without you’ are gone. We may need to start looking at how we can begin to stay together again, as man and woman, because as human beings, we are born to be social beings.

Companionship is crucial. If we can ignore that, then it means we have started losing the essence of our being. If you doubt it, try to fathom a world of only men or women. Looks like the perfect or ideal society, right? I thought as much.

Boy child, don’t lose hope. We can change things or things can change. Let us stand up and measure up to the standard. We are the men and that cannot change. The girl child is our helper and when everyone takes their lead as deemed appropriate, that is what qualifies as gender equality and equity.