Radio Miraya
2866: Community reengineering, perceptions and attitudes towards masculinity
Remember, this is the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. Well, as we continue with that, today, we get to understand more and it's more about community re-engineering perceptions and attitudes towards masculinity. Now, joining us in the studio, our guests, we have Lesmi Thomas from Men for Women Organization. And we also, he works rather in the community engagement. We also have, rather, Noah Bando, also from Men for Women. So we have two gentlemen from Men for Women Organization. And we are here to discuss and particularly look at the 16 days of activism in the eyes of masculinity. Gentlemen, a very good morning to you. Welcome is good to have you here today on the Miraya Breakfacial. Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Great. Now, let's talk about these, of course, first of all, I'd like to understand briefly about your organization, Men for Women. Who is going to explain for me briefly what do you do and how did you come about with this organization? Okay, thank you very much. Men for Women is a national organization that intends to offer opportunities for both male and female, and they are trying to counter GVV using an approach known as IMAP. That IMAP, it mitigates violence against the women and the girls through the involvement of men and women in discussions, and it also looks at sexually reproductive health within South Sudan, and briefly, that is what I can say in sort. Great. Now, of course, the 16 days of activism, as we continue, today we are looking particularly on the issue of masculinity. Now, can you just define for me, what is, what in your thought is, positive masculinity? What are we talking about here? Go ahead, please. Okay, thank you so much for the opportunity. Positive masculinity, it is, let me say, the activities or the approaches that we do is positively, not negatively. So, let me know how the community perspective towards men, that in the community, it looks men, like it's the Jayan, the man is a Jayan's, man is a person who is a very strong person, who does not cry, who does not even seek for help, but when we talk about the positive masculinity, that looks at it. It takes a talk about that a man have a role also to seek help, a man can cry when he is in issues, a man also can do other roles in home that need it. So, these are the positive things that men can do in a community, but if a man do that in a community, a man who, a community will look at him as if he's a different person. And how is a man crying a positive thing and positive masculinity? Yes, a man can cry when he has something that hurts him, you know, you know, for a man to see the tears of a man, it's not a he's a thing, like in a community, if a man cries then they see the tears, he says, no, this guy is not a man, a man actually indoors pain, he has not right to cry, even though you're going in which kind of circumstances he need just to just keep it inside you, you don't need to cry. But you know, when you keep it inside, it's also affect your health, your mental health, you need to release it out, when you release it out of pain in you, then you feel okay, your mental health when you're a mental well-being will be okay. Yes, correct me when I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, but also I want you to convince me on this because I still believe that I shouldn't cry, a man should be able to control his emotions because, you know, men who don't control emotions, actually to me, I thought a very, very dangerous man, these are men who actually commit violence and all that, but men should be able to control their emotions, why should crying actually be seen as a positive thing? Anyone of you can convince me on this. Okay, thank you very much. So, we say the positive masculinity is all about acceptable morals, attitudes, and behaviors embraced by both genders with a solid purpose of, you know, ensuring safety, respect, and harmonious existence. Now, when we talk about positive masculinity, it manifests, in most cases, respect, understanding, say the responsibility, support, and accepting each other, humility, equality, and equity among others. Now, when we talk about what he said, men should then be crying, there is what we call the gender box, how the community understands the two genders, the male and the female, what a man or a boy is supposed to be, and what a woman or a girl is supposed to be. Now, in the perspective of crying, you know, psychologically or psychologically, they say, shedding tears is, you know, a healthy measure. Even doctors do say that, but now that has been there. There is a moment where a man needs to cry, indeed, and there is no need for you to tell the man that you should then be crying, and this happened because there are high rises of suicidal deaths among the men. You have an issue for you even to talk about it. They don't want, they say, "A man must not talk." You die with your issues there, so crying offers chances for the man to get attention for those who can speak for him. So it is a part of positive masculinity that we need also the men, if something hurts you, and instead of keeping it in your heart and your come up with this, this is on that. Let me end my life. If it is crying, you cry, you cry, and when you cry, after that, how do you feel? You feel relieved. So it is a bit of a positive thing, and it is under the gender box where we are seeing what we need to move from, and what do we need to happen? Thank you. All right. Now let's go through some of the negative, because when we talk about positive masculinity, let's talk about in our society and what we see today, what do you consider as negative masculinity, apart from men avoiding to cry? Okay. Thank you, what we have seen being so negative in our community is that first marriage, you decide for somebody to get married or to be married without the consent, and then we also have seen that there is resources in balances. For Western, a girl may not be entitled to any resource, or a young person may not be entitled to anything, and at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it creates, you know, some tensions among, and then the other one is also like division of roles. Their boundaries put for Western, others, they say, "A man is not supposed to enter the kitchen." A man or a boy is not supposed to enter the kitchen, and then they say a girl is supposed to do A and B. So these gender roles that are being divided has become a bit toxic or negative in a sense that in a family, you might be like seven boys, and you have one sister. This sister will have to wash your clothes all, and then we'll have to do all the house works. And nobody will remind that, you know, why don't we try to do A and B? And this has created a very huge workload on the female gender. So it has become a bit negative, and then also we have issues of, you know, participating in decisions. For which then there is a gender that can be exempted or excluded from, you know, either meetings or decision making points, so that has become a bit toxic in our context. Yes, now talking about gender roles, and just briefly, what is your thought, do you think they shouldn't be gender roles in homes? Gender roles remain in a place, but in positive masculinity, we are thinking of, can't we say a disresponsibility? So men should go to the kitchen and help in kitchen work. Women should also be able to help, you know, let's say of Lord Seman from a Lori Traco all that. Is that what you're preaching? I want to be very clear, and I don't want to be misquoted a little bit. The point is very clear. We are looking at, you know, health, co-existent, healthier co-existing among the genders. So when we talk of, say, a de-responsibility, it does not necessarily mean they have to go and decaresement, they have to go and do whatever, but what are we are looking at in our community? For which then you're in the family? If your wife is bedding the baby, and there is a saucepan on the fire, and maybe it is about to ban. Is it necessary that you will- I'm going to let this ban because I'm not going to pass the bus now. I cannot be good here. Let it go. Okay. But our perspective is that you go and they help just within the home state, but we understand they are works, that they are limits on taking. Okay. All right. Previously, of course, we've seen, as he said, gender roles were there previously for a very, very long time, where men have to provide for their family, men have to protect their family, men have to be there as the head of their family. The women, of course, do and help as well in this particular aspect. First of all, what is wrong with that, because it has worked for a very, very long time, why do we want to replace something that has worked with something that sounds good? What is your thought on that? Yeah. Thank you so much. You know, before we've been living in a life that without all what we've been doing in our life, it is okay in the setting of our cultural norms, because when I told, let me just talk about something that you talked about, like in our community, you might look at, let me say different communities in the public of South Sudan. You might say that ladies who are not given opportunity to go to studies, only boys who are given that privilege to go on the study. So now, if we looked at it, the rights of the ladies or the rights of the culture has been violated. So it has been violated. So why? Are they not humans like the boys? They are. Absolutely. Yes. So the thing is, we need to have equal responsibility. So what a man does, a woman can do better. Like I quoted something. If we give more opportunities to ladies or women in our community, let me say starting from the community, giving them opportunity to be also in a leadership. They will also help us there. Men actually have that perspective of if they give that opportunity to women to lead in a certain place, it won't work well. But why is it that? Now we are looking at that at every place or every setting. It might be in a community, it might be in a government, it might be in organizations, it might be in different companies, ladies or women need to be included. So in every setting. All right. Thank you. We'll be going to the news shortly, news headlines shortly. And when we come back, we will continue with the conversation here in the studio with our guests as, of course, we continue with the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence and also how we can promote positive masculinity and how men and women can work together, of course, for the better men of society. Stay tuned. This is the Miraya Break for Show where the big conversation begins every morning. 101 FM. Break for Show News headlines. It's half past 8 a.m. in the morning and the chairperson of Information Committee in Parliament confirms that the National Security Act has not been returned to Parliament. Oliver Morrie Benjamin says the proposed law is still in the president's office. The two mighty peace talks resume in Nairobi today. In a joint consultative meeting yesterday, the government opposition and stakeholder representative expressed redness and willingness to return to the negotiation table. A committee investigating the reason-sooting at the residence of former spy chief, Akhul Khul, is asking affected individuals to report to the Army headquarters in Bilfam. According to a statement by Army spokesperson Major General Lul Reikwong, those with damaged property wounded in the incident or relatives of disease are encouraged to testify. A mobile court has opened in unity state. The court was deployed by the national government and will spend the next three weeks till the 24th of December, handling serious criminal cases including rep, mother and false marriages. After listening to the Miraya news headlines, that brings us right about now to 28 minutes to the top of our good morning. Yes, we continue with the conversation right now here with the studio we have our guests from Men for Women Organization, we have Lema Thomas and we also have Noah Bando with us here in the studio and we have been having a conversation on masculinity or positive masculinity or negative masculinity and how it can be actually avoided and how men and women can work together as the 16 days of activism continues of course, that's why we are having these conversations. Nalemi once again, thank you for being present, let's get back to you and talking about of course avoiding all these and particularly gender based violence, not only of course on women but also it happens to men too. So how do we as men try to fight this particular vice in the society as we continue with the 16 days of activism, what steps can people do? Because in some communities and we witness some of them here in South Sudan, people think it's normal just to beat your wife or to fight in the house and all that. But how can we get to a point where people can't resolve the issues actually without going physical without being violent? The first step that we innovated is community engagement, you know the community needs to get informed and when the community is informed, they will get to understand. I always have been saying that our cultures, we are beautiful men but amazingly distracted in the middle. Back in the days, we used not to hear about the GVV, if we ask our grandfathers, great great grandfathers, you find that people used to coexist and where there is a GVV, there is immediate intervention, the local leaders will intervene and the man will be questioned, the elderly will even sit down and you know guide you. So this has been erased due to the development that have come up. So in our side, we engage the community where there are activities, we involve them and then away at them so that it becomes a process that they put in themselves to also change. We also do conducted trainings. These trainings, we are going step by step, we are expanding slowly. Like for now, we have covered about two states, that is to say western and central. Now we train them on a model known as engaging men in accountable practices and that model is bisected into three segments. One deals with the voice, the voice from let's say from the age of 15 and above. Sometimes we consider 13 and above basing on the current changes that people are changing, things used not to happen like the one of those days. And then we have the men, we have the men group and then the women where they will also have the separate sessions in which will bring their voices together and then they say their views. For instance, the one for women runs for 16 weeks and then the one for men and the boys run for 32 weeks. So this one, in that model, there are a lot of teams, we have first of all perceiving or understanding what GVV is and then we come to the issue of power. So how do you use your power? The only thing that is creating this GVV is the power and the resources. So those are the two steps that we have and out of that, I will also add another one that is to say, you know, problem solving skills. As people, we need to understand. For Western marriage people, traditionally they say the bedroom is the parliament for married people. So any madly person who comes out with their problem, what happens to your palame? Is your palame not comfortable for you to sit and the point that you, my husband, there is something that happened and I would love us to discuss. So it is more of creating a safe space where you can freely talk to each other. As I mentioned earlier on the definition of the postive masculinity, acceptable morals, attitudes and behaviors. So we need also to have a change or transformation in our behaviors to allow us to resolve our issues and make up all. Thank you. Thank you. And just one confusion and I'm playing the devil's advocate here. Why are we even calling it positive and negative masculinity? Why not just masculinity? If someone does something as a man, which is bad, that person is just a bad person, we can be saying, oh, categorizing them as a negative masculine person. This is just a masculine person who is doing bad things. Why do we have those categories as positive, negative instead of just dealing with a problem as one and this is an issue that needed to be avoided? Thank you so much. You know, the perspective about the masculinity mostly, they say the affected people or the affected number is women. Women are the one most facing the what, the GBV, that's what they said, that's all what also we are advocating for. The people most affected is women and then the perpetrators are the men. All right. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Like if we talk about like we look into the community perspective, you see that most affected people are women and then men are the one doing all that and negative thoughts. So when we talk about the raping, you might say, who are those man, who are those making rapping in the community, you might look at those are men's than the one rapping women's. All right. Yeah. Yes. And we have, of course, for this conversation and just before you go, I'll give you a chance to send your final messages, especially on these 16 days of activism. Let's begin with you. What will be your final remarks and message to our listeners? Thank you so much for the opportunity. My final remarks today, listeners, is let's try to impress peace in our community and then let's try to have a shared responsibility. Let's also give space to women to express their voices and also give them space in leadership or in every setting that we have in our community also in the government. Thank you. Thank you so much. And yes, please go ahead. Let me, what will be your final remarks and message. Okay. My final remarks to the listeners outside there is that we are all equal, made of bones, blood and everything that the body consists of. Let's learn to treat everyone equally with the dignity and the respect. And certainly, let us adopt a peaceful means of resolving our matters within our own reach and also support any week apart. If it is the man that is weak, support. If it is the woman who is weak, support, because when you want to go far, you need to support the person who will push you forward. Great. And remain loyal to change. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Lemme Thomas. And thank you so much, Mr. Noah Bando for coming to Meray's Studios. We do appreciate your time. Thank you.