Society And The Child(ren)

As a male, society has not been kind to my gender, especially in my part of the world, as it is where I have been since I was born, and I can only speak from this point of view. The society has modified the male child to be a certain way and do certain things simply because they are males.

This, I believe is mostly due to our culture and traditions which I daresay is patriarchal, and to a great degree misogynistic. Culture and tradition are important pillars that hold the society itself. And because of that, our society portrays what our culture and tradition stands for.

The male gender has always been favoured by part of these culture and traditions. In marriages, many culture permits the man to marry more than one wife. In fact, I can say every culture permitted that before Christianity was introduced to the country by the British. But what about the female gender? They are frowned upon by anything that can frown should they speak of polyandry not to mention practice it.

Still about marriage, tradition is that a man is to pay a bride price (dowry) which is determined by the family of the woman he intends to marry. Though, the price is not fixed, and varies from culture to culture, this tradition of paying has given a lot of men the impression that the woman they are marrying is their PROPERTY because they are paying for her, and they can do with her as they see fit. And should he be displeased with her services – childbearing, cooking, washing, among others – he can send her back to her father’s house, after all, he has paid her price tag, needless to say, in full. Not to mention the sense of entitlement that comes with this mentality. She is his wife, he is entitled to anything she has to offer, be it sexual or domestic or financial. Also, she can be his human punching bag whenever he so desires his knuckles to be exercised.

You might wonder how all these is not kind to the men, after all, everything has been designed to favour them. We are all products of our society one way or another, and society has done the males a great damage by raising them to think their masculinity is to be proven by certain acts and/or expectations, such as how males are expected to be less emotional. You’re not supposed to do things such as crying or whining about anything or being afraid. “BE A MAN”. You can’t show any form of weaknesses. These have detrimental effects such as masking their true nature.

The man is supposed to provide for the family, and if he fails at this task, he has failed as a man even if he works hard at it. You go on a date with a girl, and you’re not allowed to let her pay a dime for anything, as it is wrong and an insult to your masculinity even to think of it. If she must pay, collect the cash from her and make the payment yourself. What do men have to prove with this? Superiority? If the superiority has to be proven in the first place, then it isn’t superiority, it’s a facade.

The real problem with this is, it is being taught to children at a very young age. A male child trip’s and falls, and he’s being told not to cry, that he’s a man, and men don’t cry. A female child shoves another male child as children often do when playing together, and she’s asked if she doesn’t know that he’s a male, is she supposed to see males as a gods and worship them every time they are around her?

Internalised misogyny runs deep in the body which is our society, and not enough is being done to change it. Actually, the change will take time, as the only way to go about it now is to raise children properly. It is okay to be a male, and being a male doesn’t make you a god, neither does it make you any less of a human. Humans have emotions, and emotions should be felt and expressed. It is also okay to be a female, and men are in no way superior. Maybe generally stronger physically but they are only different mainly in terms of their organs and hormones. One cannot exist without the other, and that makes them equally important, none better than the other.

In conclusion, this article is merely an expression of my displeasure with the way a lot of us have grown up with the wrong notion and orientation. Males are raised a certain way, and females too are raised a certain way. I hope we can do better as parents and make things much better than we met it, your little + everyone else’s little changes can make a big difference.

Thank You For Reading 🖤🖤