Redefining the male species

Last weekend I attended a men’s conference at my local church, Rivers Church in Sandton. Every year, the church brings men of all kinds of background and basically tries to challenge them into becoming the best men they can be to their families, communities, cities and countries. The conference is called “Heroes” and this year’s this theme was “Transformed”.

Relax, I’m not about to preach to you. In fact, come to think of it, not much preaching — you know, the familiar “repent or perish” sermons — took place during the conference. It was just men getting real with each other, confronting their issues (heaven knows they are many!) and just aspiring to become better men in life.

The image of the man has come under severe strain and criticism for some time now. There are just too many absent fathers out there, too many wife-beaters, too many unemployed men who can’t fend for their families and there are also too many men out there who are not keeping it real with their women. The advice columns in many a woman’s magazine buttress the latter point.

Hence, there is an urgent need to redefine and repair this image if men are going to be allowed to take an integral part in building violence-free, crime-free, poverty-free, educated and respected societies that can productively contribute to the growth and development of our countries.

But this redefinition and repair also needs certain reclamation of the language we use to refer to men. The bar has been set too high for most men. If they do not match up to the characteristics Superman, Incredible Hulk, Batman, Flash Gordon or Iron Man then they are basically emasculated, literally and figuratively. Such is the weight of expectations resting upon the shoulders of the male figure to deliver. As a result, there has been a massive shortage of heroes in society, according to this deeply flawed set standard at least. There just haven’t been sufficient “heroic acts” to warrant an equation of a lot of men to Superman, for example.

Yet, there are plenty of uncelebrated everyday heroes out there, men who are giving themselves selflessly to labour for their families, to put food on the table, to give their children lives they never had themselves and to love, cherish and respect the women in their lives and treat them as princesses. They don’t have superpowers and for doing that — just being themselves — they will never make the front page of any newspaper.

Perhaps a biblical analogy of the story of David is in order at this point. From Sunday school we are told the epic story of David’s defeat of the Philistine giant Goliath. But no one ever speaks of all the lone battles the young would-be-king fought with lions and bears as he tended his father’s sheep. No one even bothers to make the connection that this background is what later led him to overcome fears of confronting an animal of a different kind, Goliath the giant.

Every man has his own fears. He also has his own weaknesses, as even David himself — a man God declared was after His own heart — would realise after seeing a naked and very married Bathsheba take a bath in the open one fine day. More men need to be told that it is okay to fail or fall at some point in life as long as they are willing to bounce back and try again because ultimately, it is your attitude and response in the face of fear or other adversity that determines what heroic acts one is going to pull, witnesses or not.

This existing Macho-man School of Male Life from which plenty have graduated is nothing but a savage attack on the ability of men to be comfortable with and in being themselves. Their real selves. As a result, a lot of men have led secret lives, choosing rather to forcefully fit into and strenuously exhibit the socially constructed image of “man”.

Sometimes the real hero is not a father throwing money for a new PlayStation console at his son but one who is actually taking the time and effort to kick the ball with him in the field.