PLAIN TRUTH: Our boys need rescue, and it'll take a new kind of role model
Prisoners stand behind bars. It is more likely for a young man in Kenya to go to prison than it is for a young woman. PHOTO | MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB | AFP
What you need to know:
- As we sit, it is more likely for a young man in Kenya to go to prison than it is for a young woman.
- According to statistics from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, between 2012 and 2017, nine times more men than women were convicted of a crime and put behind bars.
- A Kenyan man is up to three or more times more likely than a woman to commit suicide. Men here are more likely to be caught up in drug and substance abuse than women.
The video of 46-year-old George Floyd, a black American, pleading for his life as a white police officer knelt on his neck has spurred protests and outrage the world over. My first reaction when I watched the clip was disbelief at the pleasure on this policeman's face and then relief that in Kenya our skin colour will not be used to decide whether one lives or dies.
While racism isn't as rife this side of the world, police violence is. When it happens, almost always, the bullet or the lash of the whip finds a man's back or chest. An old man, a young one, one that is out protesting, one that is out minding his business…it's always a man. Just earlier this week, a homeless man was shot and killed by police in Mathare, Nairobi, on the accusation that he was breaking the curfew.
I remember how excited I was when I found out that my firstborn was going to be a boy that many years ago. Because I felt underprepared for the task of parenting, I thought that having a boy would be easier. All I would need to do is feed him and take him to school; he would know which way to go.
I know I was wrong. The statistics speak a different story. As we sit, it is more likely for a young man in Kenya to go to prison than it is for a young woman. According to statistics from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, between 2012 and 2017, nine times more men than women were convicted of a crime and put behind bars. A Kenyan man is up to three or more times more likely than a woman to commit suicide. Men here are more likely to be caught up in drug and substance abuse than women.
In short, boys and men are vulnerable too.
This vulnerability creates fear. They are afraid that they are getting edged out of schools and the workforce, and I want to believe this is why we have young men pushing back especially online. I call them the hate society. Men who have the most negative reactions, who are quick to make the most demeaning accusations whenever a woman asserts herself. A lot of Kenyan men, the men around us, are not secure in their manhood.
Why? As we are raising our daughters to be strong and self-sufficient women so they can stand up to the injustices out there, we are assuming, wrongly so, that the boys will find their way. I did so at first.
That the boys are men and they will know what to do. That they will fight back should the police come guns blazing - literary. We are quick to jump on the next #MenAreTrash movement online without thinking that young men are actually eating this up and may actually become trash in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we should relent on our push towards the girl-child empowerment. God knows women continue to face a lot of challenges in a patriarchal society. What I am saying is that we need to carry the boy child too.
Gender roles are shifting and overlapping and the Kenyan boy is clearly struggling with these changes. Male mentors are needed now more than ever. There are plenty of strong, compassionate, and dependable men, men with moral integrity, out there.
Still, for some reason, young Kenyan men are lacking sufficient mentorship. I mean, even missiles are guided to their targets. Why not our boys?
