A daily newspaper last week published a heart-breaking story of a 25-year-old man suspected of the rape of 77-year-old and 83-year-old women. A few days before, an 18-year-old caught the headlines when video footage of him assaulting his grandmother made the news. In fact, there has been a depressing slew of stories in the last two weeks about men doing despicable things.
The one story that brought tears to my eyes was about a 42-year-old who lured his ex to a meeting. He then frogmarched her to his home after hitting her on the head with a hammer. There, he repeatedly raped her.
The story of the 18-year-old should give us men pause too. He probably depends on his granny for support. I would have thought when you need something from someone, you, at the very least, treat them well – even if it’s deception designed to cause them to lower their guard.
There is no higher crime than rape. Murder is complete, save for the surviving loved ones. Rape is an assault without end. Many years after the physical crime, the emotional and physiological effects remain undiminished.
The suffering of women at the hands of men is often politicised for clicks. Often men are blamed wholesale or sometimes, patriarchy, thereby creating and us and them that clearly has not led to any positive result. As a man, one must be shamed by these events and lead each of us to vow to raise a better corps of men.
But a horrible South African statistic that could be a contributing factor to this problem is that more than two in three children are “fatherless” – a birth father is unregistered. That translates to roughly to 12 million children.
Of course, just because a father’s name does not appear in the register of births doesn’t necessarily mean they take no responsibility, but the number of those fathers is obviously quite high too.
We’ve bashed the men, shouted at them and called them names and this stick approach has failed to produce a change of the undesired behaviour. Maybe now we need a carrot.
My mother, bless her heart, taught me “if you want something done the way you want, do it yourself”. This should not be controversial, especially when the stakes are as high.
You don’t look for the cause of the fire when the house is burning but you put out the flame.
Maybe the solution to our problem of bad men is not calling one or other parent names but to each implement our best solution in spite of the other because, after all, men are one-time children, and each child comes from two. No parent should wait on the other to do what is right by their child.
Both men and women should knuckle down collectively to ensure they raise a better generation of men, but should one fail, the other ought not to fold their arms and call the other trash.
How does that benefit the child they share, the child who will grow up to be the next abusive trash? When you see your 19-year-old assault your mother, do you feel less trashy than the partner who left you to raise him all on your own?
While on that, this too must be said as painful as it is. I don’t like trash hence I don’t choose trash for a partner. It makes no sense to me that some women take a glory lap after calling the men they chose as partner, of their own volition, trash.
When you want something done the way you expect, do it yourself, including raising your child.
So, the first thing I would do if my intention were to raise a future man who is not trash, would be to ensure I am not trash, then make sure the -other party in the making of such future man is also not trash.
I would then put the names of both parties to the making on this future man on the register of births. With a bit of luck, the two parents I ensured were not trash would raise a generation like them, not trash.
When we accept that a man becomes trash because of one bad parent, we deny the other their agency. We preach one voter makes a difference but deny that one parent also does.
As leaders of households, sure, us men must take greater responsibility but should you choose a trashy man to make a baby with, you should pick up his slack.
Throwing your hands in the air in defeat will not reduce the sea of future trashy men. The men who will perpetuate the carnage.
As a woman, you have the power to break the cycle, and if your future man is important to you, you must get into the trenches to actualise that future.
That is leadership… you don’t wait on the cause to find redemption instead you act, even if you might fail. When you do something, failure is a possibility but when you do nothing, failure is guaranteed.
Our children, among them future men, are too precious to become pawns in the political blame game.
The numbers at which women are dying at the hands of men is an existential threat and we – both men and women – cannot afford to be fiddling when the very existence of humanity is on the line.
- Mzwandile kaBizokwakhe is a columnist at large with obviously too much time to think silly things
