Peter Espeut
LAST WEEK I described the crisis in masculinity as starting with an economic reality: worldwide, men are expected to "bring home the jerk chicken", but with widespread poverty and unemployment, many Jamaican men are unable regularly to do so. With more occupations opening up to women who more and more are the main family breadwinners, this inevitably leads to a male identity crisis. The problem is deepened by Jamaica's education system which systematically favours females, ultimately leading to a situation where about three-
quarters of the annual graduating class at the University of the West Indies is female. As
currently structured, Jamaica's education system leaves boys and men behind, leading to
relatively high male illiteracy and dropouts from the system, relegating many males to the lowest end of the labour market. This situation creates a disjuncture in Jamaican family life, with both women and men unable to find suitable marriage partners.
MARGINALISING THE MALES
Another way to look at the
situation is that it disempowers the majority of males in Jamaican society. It was Professor Errol Miller who, while
advancing the thesis of the 'Marginalisation of the Black Male' in a 1986 monograph of the same name, proposed that this was not unintentional. He asserts (and it is a compelling thesis) that the authors of this plantation society called Jamaica, intentionally put in place the following status hierarchy: (in descending order) white man, white woman, black woman, black man. The system was created to reduce the potential of black man to be a threat. (By the way, in case you have not yet picked it up, this whole discussion is my contribution to that American invention called black history month).
This sort of talk is not popular in some circles; the subject of race is taboo on many upper St. Andrew verandahs; one must, however, go where the truth leads, even if for some it is an unpleasant discussion.
Unable to 'become a man' by mainstream, socially acceptable means, many men are led to redefine manhood in penile terms. When all is said and done (they have decided), men have at least one thing that women don't and that many women want which cannot satisfactorily be mechanically substituted. There is, the argument goes, at least one way in which black men cannot be marginalised. And so, sexual intercourse becomes, for many men, the source and
occasion of power (over women). And sexual prowess
is substituted for academic achievement, number of women bed partners and number of
pickney become more important indicators of masculinity than number of CXCs or number of university degrees.
FLAWED AND
EXPLOITATIVE RELATIONS
Because all this is rooted in a masculinity crisis, one's manhood has to be proved (to oneself, and to others) regularly; and this often leads to flawed and exploitative relations with the opposite sex: sexual harassment and violence; excessive sexual insinuations and propositions; promiscuity; unwanted children; sometimes rape; and of course, 'homophobia'. Even effeminate men may be a tremendous threat to a man in a masculinity crisis, for deep down, he is uncertain about himself; and so he retreats into gay-bashing to try to prove to others that he is really a man.
Can a man be a man in Jamaica without being a sexual athlete? Well, no, those men in a masculinity crisis would say. To conquer a woman, to take her to bed, to impregnate her, is the stuff of being a man. I have never seen it better put than on the walls of a certain boys' high school in Kingston (and I ask my readers pardon): "Find her, fr'en her, feel her, fher, forget her". Such a person is a pathetic emotional cripple, seriously in need of help.
The essence of being a real man is being able to enter into deep unexploitative interpersonal relationships with others that involve real commitment. The national masculinity crisis is
that we are far away from that, possibly heading in the opposite direction!
Sadly and tragically there are too many men for whom the gun an important phallic symbol is the source of their sense of masculinity. Many a 'brave' gunman with his 'irons' in his hand is reduced to whimpering and simpering when deprived of it. It is my view that one of the symptoms of the crisis in masculinity is gun (and knife) crime, and that one of the essential strategies to eradicate crime
at its source, has to do with resolving Jamaica's serious masculinity crisis. (More next week)
Peter Espeut, a sociologist, is executive director of an
environment and development non-governmental organisation.
