Honestly, I didn’t know this day existed up until about 5 days back. I read Dr. Martin Sempa’s tweets with the hash tag #IMD2013 and I got curious. On finding out it was about Men’s day, I was glad. I then started think deep into the idea.
The fight for the girl child has been a great one. A very exciting one for most women. The number of NGOs present can testify to that. I feel like the boys have been side-lined. They have been forgotten.
In my O’level, the boys never swept the class nor mopped. The rota only had the girls. We always found that unfair as the boys used this as an excuse to make the class dirty and walk away saying “girls, don’t forget to clean the class, we want it clean tomorrow”. Looking back now, I only pity them even when then that brought so much rage in the girls.
There is need for boys to be given so much attention too. To be taught about values and virtues. To be given business skills. And show them that they too are very important and crucial to drive society.
Someone once said that the problems of a nation could be the families. Everyone believes that women are the mothers of the nation. Without refuting the ideas, I wonder. Who makes them the mothers? Who heads these families? Men. Men are boys before they become men. Therefore, these boys need a guidance and direction.
When we talk about youth programmes one would think that maybe boys and young men hide under this umbrella but I have seen women push their way through them and are lifted by society and media while there.
While in school, when a boy performed well, it was normal. When a girl performed well, it was great. Boys were asked to stand up and clap. Looking back we always thought these boys were just jealous when they booed instead. But who knows how and what they will resolve for the future.
I went to Maryhill for HsC and they stood by the fact that they were creating a Holistic Girl Child. They then went on to teach us so many things that were not on the syllabus like morals, general housework among others. Is there a school that set out with the goal of creating a Holistic Boy Child? Not forgetting that we were referred to as sheep and boys preferred to be called Bulls and Lions.
I agree with Dr. Sempa who believes that in order to create the Incorruptible Strong and Responsible Father and Man, we need to build the character of the boys. He talks about the 8 paged pull outs on women in newspapers versus the 2 paged ones on men which only scratch the surface and how crisis interventions are only for girls like Kisakatte.
I therefore strongly believe that there is a crisis with the boys too. The media along with the Government ie. Ministry of Gender need to look into this matter. Many countries are celebrating this day, My country,Uganda should join in.
...did I think it or say it? 