Dannys Desk

MASCULINITY.

Did you spend your childhood ‘closing school’ with some boys? Do you suffer from the urge to stare at women and whistle, make weird comments about their body shapes? Have you ever tried to show off your ‘guns and abs’? Then my friend you are suffering from a horrific disease called ‘maleness’. Don’t worry my disgusting friend, there is a cure. ‘Anti-Man’, proven to reduce testosterone and eradicate your masculinity within 30 days or your money back.

This is the message that a growing number of gender activists and corporations that wish to adopt a virtuous facade, most recently Gillette, would have us believe. Lakini, what’s the reality? Based on social norms that have been developed over generations and thousands of years, underpinned by biology and using empirical evidence I seek to rationalize masculinity and answer an important question. IS BEING MASCULINE BAD FOR SOCIETY? As my crazy friend says, fast of oho, what is masculinity?

It is entirely distinct from an individual’s biological sex. Its true masculine traits stem from a person’s biological sex, but if we’re getting technical then masculinity itself is a social construct that describes a set of traits innately present in most men. Yes I said most not all. Some traits can be found in women, however not always and often to lesser extremes. The traits also may differ from different cultures, but traits that define a masculine man are universally consistent. These traits are stoicism, resilience, courage, strength, independence and assertiveness.

Now before we judge men for being too assertive sometimes leading to violence or too stoic for not displaying emotions, we need to understand where this comes from. Men don’t become stoic just because we tell them ‘crying is for girls’ and ‘man up’. Masculinity might be enforced or enhanced by certain cultures through social pressures. But the fact is, masculine traits originate from our biology, constructed over a period of over 200,000 years since the beginning of homo sapiens. We are divided as animals in two sexes, not just for reproduction but also for other reasons. Look at the whole animal kingdom, male and female roles are well defined. Females have evolved to have behavioral and physiological traits that are conducive to the healthy development and loving nurture of their young. This simplifies logistics…

Empathy, patience, tenderness and emotional awareness those are the traits mothers have. Security and provision is left to the male species. This is where males developed a greater aptitude for physical strength and the natural courage to hunt and provide food for their tribe and women (Now you know why women like talk dark and muscular men). Men evolved to have aggressiveness, resilience and assertiveness, underpinned by undying competitiveness against rival males and protect their women and tribe from other scarier tribes with bigger, larger and pointier sticks. Now that was pre-civilization, we don’t need long, bigger and pointier sticks nowadays do we ladies? Eehhmm…

These are the traits most gender activists are looking to eradicate. Today it is more socially acceptable than ever before in the history of humanity for a man to show emotions and share his feelings with his friends, for a man to cry, for a man to choose another man as a sexual partner and marry him. All these are truly amazing and undeniably positive advances towards a better, more harmonic world and well I wouldn’t say any, but not all degrades a man’s masculinity. But these are not the traits these authoritarian leftist activists are trying to suppress. What is under fire is the more assertive, domineering and tough side that is biologically present in every man, to varying degree.

Let’s be honest, evil and malice is present in every gender. So let’s stop associating evilness with masculinity. It’s true more men get arrested more than women. But let’s be fair, if a man drugs a woman that case will be investigated and the man caught. IF a man is drugged by a woman, we say he learnt a lesson. If a man beats up a woman that’s a police case, if a woman beats up a man. You say, alijua hajui.. We have brought up men who can no longer stand for themselves. Because we taught them being masculine is bad for themselves. We have empowered women and clueless men. Lets stop judging all men for a few men’s mistakes. Let’s not take away the beautiful things masculine do, when a man takes his kids to school, that’s masculinity doing good, when a young man helps his mother that’s masculinity doing good, when terrorists attacks and our men in uniform come to the rescue, that’s masculinity doing good. Let’s not frustrate men from being masculine.

These men who help build and improve our society every day face other challenges at an alarming ratio. Men commit suicide three times more than women, men are more likely to be assaulted or robbed, 3.5 times more likely to be murdered, 96% of work fatalities happen to men, 5.6 times more likely to be incarcerated, 86% of homeless population is male, boys have been lagging behind girls in education the last 15 years and the gap is widening every year. We no longer push for competitiveness, we have taken the competitiveness from the boy child and now we are awarding kids for just participating. There are 5 times more girl schools than boys in every county.

Empowering the girl child is a good thing, but doing so by neglecting the boy child is building a bad society. Who will these girls date? Who will they marry? If you ask ladies they say its hard to find a good man. In other words they lack masculine men any more. We have encouraged men to be feminine and this taken the masculinity away from the boy child. Women have mothers to mentor and raise them. Who will raise the boy child? Who will raise the boy child? AS much as we want hide this under the rug, father-lessness is very bad for the boy child.

I myself and anyone else out there, do not wish to take away the ability to be feminine if you want to, I don’t have a problem with you being the person you want to be. But we all must work to protect the rights of everybody to choose who they want to be. Let everyone have a right to be who they want to be, lets not label men who want to be masculine as sexist male privilege by the media and tribal activists. So men, if you want to shout and enjoy your brown bottles during a game, have fun and enjoy your masculine self.

Thank you for reading