Week 2: Masculinities and religious and cultural norms

Gender Equality - Positive Masculinities
#41

Hello everyone!

Week 2 has come to an end. It has been a very enlightening discussion where we saw a lot of similarities in our African countries and different religions.

This week we looked at masculinities and religious and cultural norms. These are the questions we had to respond to:

  • What are the religious and cultural norms regarding men and women’s roles (household, community)?
  • What are some stereotypes coming from these roles, and how can they be harmful to individuals and communities? (Try to emphasize men and boys)
  • How can we advocate for men to be more involved in sharing (unpaid) care responsibilities more equally? (e.g. domestic duties including raising children from birth)

Here are some of the points that came out:

  1. Men are considered strong, powerful, household heads and breadwinners
  2. Men are expected to provide and protect their families.
  3. Boys are raised with the understanding that they are superior than girls.
  4. Girls’ education is not that important as when they grow up they will marry and be part of another family.
  5. There are specific duties meant for women that men cannot do and if they help out - that is interpreted in a negative way.
  6. There are specific careers only meant for meant because of their strong nature
  7. Women cannot talk in front of men in meetings and gatherings
  8. Women cannot hold leadership positions in society and in church
  9. Women are supposed to take care of domestic affairs, cook, take care of children and home.
  10. Religion was noted as the major contributor in gender inequality. In Christianity there are Bible verses that are used to oppress women.
  11. In other religions, women do not sit at the same place with men, they are separated and they cannot even lead prayers.
  12. All these cause lack of confidence in women and also cause gender based violence especially if women stand up and argue with these issues.

More and more issues came out. There were also suggestions on how to advocate for men to share responsibilities more equally. Some of the suggestions were:

  • Media should play a major role to sensitize these gender issues.
  • Broadcasters need to feature more success stories where households that have involved men and boys in equally sharing unpaid care responsibilities have demonstrated more happiness and success for both sexes.
  • There is much work that needs to be done by government agencies and NGOs to transform traditions that oppress women and girls into ones that promote them.
  • Discussions of such should be done inclusively outlining the importance of engagements by all parties - raising children to teach them and equally rationed roles to them not separating roles to them. This should be seen as a win-win situation because of its importance. For instance, chores at home should be rationed: everyone be involved in the chores, cooking, farming, weeding, fertilizer application, harvesting etc.
  • Make men understand that each one is equal and gender cannot tell one can do this ,one cannot do that by giving them examples of women who have done it in life.
  • Support girls in taking the lead as we promote girls and women’s leadership to achieve peaceful and sustainable world.
  • Traditional leaders such as chiefs and headmen should be educated on issues to do with gender equality and also assisted with the resource capacity. Furthermore, churches and schools should not be left out in this fight against gender inequality.

It was also noted that it may not always be easy to do this. It is believed that it is very hard to change or convince an African traditional man because he believes deeply in his roots. e.g. if a woman is pregnant she still has to fulfill her duties as a wife (washing clothes ,sweeping the yard etc)while a man is sitting .He would rather let the woman feel pain doing all the house chores just to secure his reputation and avoid being called names by the community.

This coming week we will look into other issues concerning positive masculinities.

Cheers!

#42

Firstly, I’m glad to note that our struggle for gender equality is similar. Great insights in here actually. Let me just add or echo some.

  1. What are the religious and cultural norms regarding men and women’s roles (household, community) in your region?

In church,

  • Men often preach and hold higher positions (eg. elder or deacon). Women often sing and attend services or mass as general members. Quite frankly, there are very few female-led churches in Zambia compared to male-led.

  • Even in the choir or praise teams, males are often choir masters or leaders, while women remain backing vocalists (I’m in the praise team; so I know firsthand)

  • Women are more hospitable in church and are likely to be ushers, while men are spiritual leader and are likely to be intercessors.

Culturally,

  • Women cook, clean, wash and, generally, take care of the home.

  • Men often provide for the home, fix home appliances, and landscape.

  • At funerals, men often sleep outside in tents, while women sleep inside the house; stressing the stereotype of men are stronger than women.

  • Still at funerals; women do all the house chores and all the crying, while men are silent and focus on providing. Men also lead most funeral processions from buying the coffin to digging the grave.

  1. What are some stereotypes coming from these roles, and how can they be harmful to individuals and communities? (Try to emphasize men and boys)

Common Stereotypes:

  • “Men are stronger than women.” Effect : some men become proud and abuse their power in the process and women fail to arise to the occasion, thinking they are not as strong.

  • “Men are better leaders than women.” Effect : more men become leaders (although not good) as women shun leadership positions.

  • “Men don’t cry; women do.” Effect : society has emotionless, suicidal, closed up men.

  • “Women are more caring and loving than men.” Effect a society of macho men.

  1. How can we advocate for men to be more involved in sharing (unpaid) care responsibilities more equally? (e.g. domestic duties including raising children from birth)
  • we can use social behaviour change communication and create media campaigns around gender issues. I’d recommend drama as one of the main formats. Example: Fatherhood, an American movie. I strongly believe it’s easier to identify ourselves in characters.
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#43

The religious and cultural norms regarding men and women’s role in the households, communities, churches and mosques have clearly delineated the roles by gender and sexes. These norms have been sexed up everything we do in our society. These roles are culturally and religiously constructed. Boys and girls are born as children equally only differentiated by their sexual organs, but as they grow, the society began to sharpen them and differentiate them by roles and norms. It starts by telling the girls how to sit, dress, talk, walk, act and behave. The boys are normed same way until all grow up to be the men and women. That Women do not climb palm tree in Igboland of South East Nigeria is a cultural norm. This and other such norms have been perpetuated over time and it become a religious and cultural rule that nobody can go against. That boys do not cook or do house chores are all part of these norms gradually constructed and enforced over time. The African traditional religion have roles for women as Goddesses and Priestesses until the colonial masters came with white man’s religion of Christianity and Arabs came with Islam. Beyond the few norms created or constructed by African Traditional Religion, the foreign religions came with more hardcore norms that marginalized women and girls even more. When we began to hear that men and women cannot worship in same space inside same Mosque, it was a norm passed and assimilated. That women cannot be priests in Christian churches also came as a norm inherited via the foreign religion and now we find ourselves in this situation where we have began a new hard job of stopping these norms.
The stereotypes coming from these roles have inadvertently began to be harmful to the women. A widow in an Igbo community whose husband died and is left in the remote village to fend for herself cannot pluck palm nuts from palm tree for instance or cut the palm fronds to feed her sheep and goats without dependent on scarce menfolk within the communities. This simple process renders her dependent on men to take certain steps to live her life. The few women who have decided to break the rules and norms are strictly stigmatized to the point of excommunication and isolation.
The present economic realities have began to make men to be involved in sharing those litany of unpaid jobs which women do in the past. Some men have seen the need to assist their wives in doing these jobs at home viz the cooking, sweeping, cleaning, washing, baby care, errands, shopping and market visits, while some fanatic toxic masculines have stuck to their cultural and religious norms of as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. Only men with positive masculinity can survive in the new era of global revolution because they can save themselves the heart attack and stress of carrying the world on their shoulders alone and dying away so soon. If we check the number of widows in our various societies and communities, it shall be very clear to us that toxic masculinity is the poison that kills men faster than women. I rest my case.

#44

Hello all,week 2 submissions.

What are the religious and cultural norms regarding men and women’s roles (household, community)?

Gender norms are deeply rooted in the religious circles in Zambia.

In some churches like the Seventh Day Adventist women are not allowed to preach as that role is the preserve of the men.

Key decision making positions such as church administration elder and other critical positions in the church are held by men.

Mostly Women are tasked with the responsibilities of cleaning the church and preparing food for the visitors at church even though a small percentage are appointed in the leadership structure,it must be noted that the positions are less influential compared to those held by the men.

Women are not allowed to wear trousers at church.However,I have observed that the women folks in Pentecostal churches are at liberty to wear trousers even the pastor’s wives are allowed to preach which is in total contrast with the norms of the traditional churches.

With regards to cultural norms in relation to women’s role,women have a duty to take care of the family and do domestic chores among others.In the Zambian culture the roles assigned to women are not labour intensive compared to roles taken up by men.

For example during the farming season, women prepare food while men cultivates the land.

Issues of family planning are the preserve of the women folk.On the other hand,men are considered the heads of households and women are supposed to be submissive to their husbands no matter the education background of a woman.

  1. What are some stereotypes coming from these roles, and how can they be harmful to individuals and communities? (Try to emphasize men and boys)

ANS: It must be noted that as a result of the widely held beliefs regarding women’s and men’s roles it has had a negative impact on achieving gender equality.

Because men are considered to be strong that women,jobs with value are only offered to men.

One will find that a woman will be a full time house wife due to the widely held cultural norm that a woman’s place is in the kitchen.Being a house wife does not come with monetary gains and yet it is a full time job looking after children and taking care of the household.

The notion that men are the head of households has lead to power imbalance which creates gender inequality.

Women are denied chances of taking up leadership positions because they are considered as weaker vessels.

Jobs with value are only given to men as women are offered jobs which attracts less pay.

In most cases,girls have been hindered from pursuing male dominated careers such as engineering and technical courses etc due to the cultural belief that they are supposed to do less labour intensive work.

  1. How can we advocate for men to be more involved in sharing (unpaid) care responsibilities more equally? (e.g. domestic duties including raising children from birth)

ANS: Well,broadcasters have a duty to ensure that they advocate for men to be more involved in sharing responsibilities at family level.

This can be done by urging men to make use of the paternity leave which is their entitlement and spend some quality time with the new born baby for the sake of bonding with the child and helping the woman who is just from the delivery room.

In Zambia,the number of paternity leave is 7 days.Broadcatsers can however advocate for more days to be added so that the men can begin to spend time with their families and help with the domestic chores.

Responsible parenthood means that you share domestic chores equally and be part of the child’s life.

#45

Religion and culture have been aspects on the forefront spearheading negative masculinity.

Automatically, when a man marries a woman, the woman joins the religion of that man whether she wants or not.

A choice of own religion by a woman is considered as insubordination or challenging the man.

Other men are able to let women exercise their right to religion.

Where the woman is able to exercise her right to religion, the religion that a man attends might bring him under tough questioning. It is considered to signify lack of man’s control over his house.

A scripture from the Holy Bible in paraphrasing says that; he who can’t manage (demonstrate leadership control and or abilities over) his family cannot lead people “ecclesia”

So consideration goes beyond recognizing the right of a woman on choice of religion.

Culture on the hand, has many elements that oppress women in many ways. In my village, men are not allowed to go out to fetch for water. It is considered as a role of a woman.

If a man goes to a borehole to draw water, straight away, women there would organize one to carry the water for him.

It is so unfortunate that such practices have become a norm among us and women in the villages treat them as normal.

#46

@Busi_Ngcebetsha @AlfredJamesMungwa @Esau @Buzo @Denis @Pmphaka

Hi friends,

I have read some insightful and fascinating ideas from you all about what it means to be a man in Africa. One of the major themes is the apparent stress most men face in their daily attempts to strike a good balance between their masculine expectations and privilege.

The social expectations and pressure on boys increase towards the end of their teenages; this is the stage where boys are expected to take the necessary steps and make the transition from a ‘boy’ to become a ‘real man’.

Being able to shoulder the responsibilities that come with “manhood” is increasingly becoming elusive for many of the men. Part of this stems from the “breadwinner” mentality; being a breadwinner gives a certain sense of entitlement on the part of most men. In the eyes of a ‘breadwinner’, the recipient is a subordinate and a responsibility.

Some theorists suggest that male violence and aggression is often connected to the decline in traditional ways of enacting manhood. Male violence against women, other men and themselves is occasioned by existential crisis men and boys experience globally as a result of inadequate work and income generating opportunities to support their “breadwinner” idea.

There seems to be no doubt that work and access to income is at the heart of male violence – because being a ‘breadwinner’ is fundamental for men’s social value and self-esteem. Cultural diversity and relativity have fuelled misleading stereotypes of culture that reinforce what the most conservative voices for cultures claim as their heritage or traditions.

One of the most significant points worth discussing is the potential of men to reimagine more accommodating and healthier masculinities. In view of the fact that hegemonic masculine norms oppress men who would otherwise wish to express equality in their relationships by performing roles normally assigned to women, engaging men and boys remain one of the key conduits through which alternative masculine ideas can be promoted or practised.

I look forward to reading more comments from you all. Kindly feel free to touch on the points I have raised here.

Somed.

#47

thanks,i am mathewos feleke FBC journalist
The religious and cultural norms; in our area specially south nations,woliatta,gammo,goffa areas religiuos and cultural norms are cronic still.In wolaita areas religious norms especially in protestant religion,womens not allowed to sit side to men in church,womens not allowed to tell any thing infront of men in church,including no allowed to pray GOD.In house women not tell,not show her feeling including sexual intercourse or not allowed planning to give birth.

The stereotypes coming from above some mentioned are very high.In short men is the all,women are some what got to have fulifill sexual intercourse,or to get child.Women not allowed to tell her feeling,not allowed to do any thing whether men orderde,or if he wants.
We can advocate men to be involved in creating awareness firstly to avoid unwanted feeling that came from heritages.we can also advocate in teaching religious leaders to chnage awerness created in their mind.Even if it may take some long time to chnage these attitudes,craeting awaeness for concerned bodies may be important.

#48

Highlight good examples of men who are caring taking good care of these responsibilities and how this does not change their masculinity. Emphasize the long term effects that the involvement of men sharing these responsibilities have on children and the community.