Africa-Press – Eswatini. I wished that everyone who is concerned about the high levels of crimes and gender-based violence (GBV) in the country could speak up. But the question is always; why are we not including all children? We often forget about the boy child. We have neglected the boys in our society and it is not getting any better. Prison cells are filled with young men.
To want to focus on the boys and their masculinity is not a competition of the sexes; it is about saving them from themselves, thus making our society a safer space for every child, everyone, especially the girl child.
Hope
Sometimes I hope that someone in power makes it his or her responsibility to tell good, inspiring and positive stories about masculinity, so that many young men may start seeing themselves in a different light. As things stand, they are subjected to too many stories that will not aid in the quest to build a non-violent, non-sexist and non-toxic society.
There is power in storytelling and mainstream media has to do better. The late Bell Hooks argued that ‘mainstream media sources often provide limited examples of potential role models for young men to set their aspirations. ‘Considering the high levels of media that young men consume, it is important to investigate how they negotiate negative images in media and how these images inform their constructions of masculinity’.
Report
Boys and young men have to reimagine themselves. This can happen quicker and more effectively if the various media platforms take some form of responsibility in how they report news. There should be a deliberate move to search for these positive stories about boys and men and run with them. “When women get together and talk about men, the news is almost always bad news. If the topic gets specific and the focus is on men, the news is even worse,” wrote Hooks. Those are the words you find on the blurb of Hooks’ book, titled, ‘We Real Cool, Black men and masculinity’.
Even when we open newspapers, watch the news on TV, a drama series or a quick run on the website, we hardly come across a positive story about men. In fighting GBV, the toxicity of masculinity, and the injustices caused by men, we ought to continue to ask the question: what about the boys? Ideally, print media is supposed to be like a buffet, you should be served political, educational, business, sports, and human interest stories and analyses that will look at the geopolitical, socio-political, and psychosocial affairs to name but a few.
Objective
Even if the main objective is politics, the layers of politics should not be limited to political analysts. The issues of healthy versus unhealthy masculinity, absent fathers and present fathers, single moms, and child-headed families are more political than the political leaders themselves. However, we have reduced the scope of what encompasses politics in our country so much that when we say politics sells, we are looking at the one side of thieves, unfaithful, misleading and dishonest individuals that masquerade as leaders.
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