International Women’s Day 25th November 2011

A year since the last posting, time flies fast indeed. What is new? What gender issues which affect women and girls were our world able to eliminate? Not too long ago, in the news a woman and her daughter were stoned to death because she, the mother, was found in adultery. The age old question, “where was the man in adultery with her”? From bible times to now he seems to elude the captors. With the advancement of women’s entry into education, health care, top professional jobs, etc., can we say whether women and girls have been liberated?

Professional women are still bullied by their male partners and bosses. They are still paid less than their male counterparts. They still face sexual harassment especially if they desire to excel in the jobs. Many of these professional women don’t get to control the money they work for; many more still have to hop to the domestic duties although they work full time jobs. What has change for women and girls?

How many women are raped in their own bedrooms by the men they are with? And what about incest, how many girls are forced to have sex with a family member? Some of these girls are set up by their own mothers and are made to have sexual relations with men so that they can bring money into the home. Then there is the problem of teenage pregnancy and again the male partner young or older gets away unpunished or at least not made to be accountable. What has changed for women and girls?

In some countries male babies are still privileged over females, thus female babies are culled in the pre or post natal stages. Some girls are still denied education and are made to do house chores, gardening and rearing of life stock. What has changed for women and girls? When they still live in fear of men and boys even in their own communities where they live, play and work. When will they be able to walk the streets without being harassed, molested, raped or killed?

With all the seemingly positive advancements humanity has made and the accomplishments women have gained through their struggles, it seems to me that there is a level of archaic brain cobwebs thus keeping human mentalities web locked in the patriarchal system. Much of the rules governing the patriarchal system was formulated by men in the interest of men. Both males and females are victims of the patriarchal system so that both tend to respond to the social, political, economical dictates of it.

So with all the advancements made in the world today and positive, noted accomplishments women gained, human mentality has to be transformed, patriarchal cobwebs have to be swept out in order to address the problems women and girls still face. How do we create these changes?

Education is one of the tools which can be developed and utilized to bring about change. The young mind is proven to be very impressionable so professionals in education and gender development research can development programmes to transform mentalities. The age group from zero to seven is the most important category in which change is likely to occur. We generally have a sense as to what we wish to accomplish in human behavior.  The effort has to be a partnership with the major schools i.e. sociology, psychology, philosophy, educators, gender researcher, and parents.

Parents are the most important group in the mix because of their level of interfacing with children at every single stage of human development and can therefore help by bringing to the table their own wisdom about parenting the different age groups. In terms of designing programmes and policies, educators for the zero to seven age group, ought to be seriously consulted as practitioners, they always bring a dimension which cannot be contained nor explained through books. What these programmes will be? We leave that for the proposed teams to produce.

At the ordinary level, the little gender transforming steps we take will go a long way. As simple as boy clean room, wash wares and do laundry and girl climb trees, play foot ball, go out and explore the outdoors can begin transforming gender roles. Of course though we may be adults we can still make choices to model favorable behaviours in front of our children.

So development has taken place and female inroads in professional and other arenas have occurred yet the rate of abuse towards women and girls is still alarming. The solution lies in gender transformation education and modeling with emphasis on the under seven age group because that age is most impressionability. All hands on deck for transformation of mentalities and improvement in gender relations. The young and the instruments of education is they to go to have gender social change.

Sankofa Tuzinde 25th November 2011

In Observance of International Women’s Day 2011

                                                                                                                             

International Men’s Day (IMD) 19th November 2011

Below are five key challenges that the International Men’s Day team suggest for focusing the collective minds of people who want to take action and give boys the best possible start in life are: 

• HEALTH AND LIFE EXPECTANCY: Why are boys around the world more likely to die before the age of five and why do boys in every continent look forward to a much shorter life than girls? What are the reasons for boy’s higher likelihood of suicide? What action can we take to give boys the best possible start in life and help them live longer, happier, healthier lives?
• EDUCATIONAL FOCUS: Why are boys in richer countries underperforming girls and also less likely to be in education, and why are tens of millions of boys in poorer countries still not completing a primary education? How can we address truancy, and poor literacy rates which leave boys prone to adult unemployment, substance abuse, obesity, depression, and poverty? What action can we take to focus on boys’ education in a way that gives them the best possible start in life and closes the gaps between girls and boys and rich boys and poor boys?
• TOLERANCE OF VIOLENCE: Why are we so tolerant of violence and abuse against men and boys and why do we still tolerate a world where we send boys to fight the wars among adults? What actions can we take to help boys’ grow up free from violence and challenge our collective tolerance and support of violence against men and boys?
• RIGHTS TO FATHERHOOD: How can we give boys a right to family life that gives them an equal opportunity to know and experience both their father and mother and ensure that their role as a future father is equal to a girls role as future mother. What actions can we take to give every boy an equal right to fatherhood?
• REAL LIFE CHOICES: How can we make sure that every boy has opportunities to make a range of positive life choices in terms of work, family and leisure and reduce the number of boys whose life choices are limited and end up poor, illiterate, unemployed, homeless, imprisoned and isolated? What action can we make to help every boy get the best possible start in life and make a positive transition form boy to man that makes the world a better place for everyone?

http://www.international-mens-day.com/Boys.php, (Copied18th November 2011 online)

Resently in  the Republic Trinidad and Tobago a father was given limited visiting time with his new born child while the mother has twenty four hour visitation according to the hospital rules. Above are five guiding points supplied by the IMD global organization? What struck me is that the major affliction males face is absenteeism to their children. Many babies do not see their male parents in the first few hours of their lives. Some do not see their fathers for days, months, some for years, and some never see them at all. Can this factor of early father absenteeism affect male human beings, certainly both male and female? Human beings learn in a major way from copying. Are there significant things new born babies might be denied, by not having the significant male present in at least the first three hours of birth? One possible way might be the increased anxiety the mother may experience. The energies emitted by the mother can be received by the baby. Whatever emotions the baby receives could inform the baby’s life for the rest of it life according to psychology.

Two reasons for raising this issue are, 1. The five points offered to us ought to be a happy natural response which must be governed by early presence and involvement. Note, while the baby is still in the womb. The disposition of the mother, the way she is treated by the father of the child will influence the disposition of the child, issues like fear, anxiety, anger, self isolating, and so on can be observed in an affected child as early as babyhood.

Secondly, these dispositions can be avoided by potential parents working on their own issues and as far as the case in the Republic Trinidad and Tobago is concerned, it is time for men to be allowed to be un-generalized and un-stereotyped as social beast to be kept away from their children. Some hurting mother go at length to keep children away from their fathers, this can do harm to the child by way of psycho-social confusion. Also, not all fathers are misfits and socially unhealthy. Most are eager to be involved in their children’s lives. Most have proven to be excellent fathers. Therefore, why the continuance of a social blanket of “males being misfits” to the point of influencing laws and policies?

So to accomplished healthier boys to men, some stereotypes would have to be changed in government policies, cultural norms, etc. which pit the gender against each other thus producing generations of affected males. This suggests that we got to get our act together for the children’s sake. We cannot afford to use our children as missiles back and forth dysfunctional parents. Once we bring children into the world we must decrease so that they can increase, and truly given all opportunities to be self actualized i.e. come into their fullest potential in all the facets of the human life. Fathers make every effort to be present for your child/children from the very beginning and the world will be a much safe happier place. Perhaps for reflection, we can ask ourselves how can we accomplish the above five points and what role we can play in raising our boys, might I say not just our biological sons but boys, children in our communities.
Sankofa Tuzinde 18th November 2011