Men where you at?

Women are looking over their backs all the time these days. And to bring it home I’m just going to talk from my perspective. I no longer feel safe and can’t trust men, I’m even questioning the men around me. Very few women can honestly sit in a room and say they are safe in the same space as a man. Very few have the opportunity to speak about the pain, violence and also torture they face. This kind of behavior has birthed the #MenareTrash movement. Followed by the #Metoo movement. However, I think the movement that makes me want to kill every man alive is the #Missingperson

My mind always takes me back to when Michelle Obama said in one of her talks that men need to sit and unpack “their stuff”. She was freely giving all of the men in the world the opportunity and the validation to go into bars, pubs, homes, golf courses, business meetings, boardrooms, coffee shops and even churches and start talking about what this "stuff" really is. Because if we were honest and if we are keeping it real this pent-up anger that is unspoken about the reason we are here. I don’t want us to liken every issue we face here as if it’s another HIV/AIDs issue where we thought it only belongs to a certain race group and only to a particular class bracket. Let’s just examine the killing and raping of women at the hands of men as a universal issue that has been brought to the surface.

Here is what I would like men to unpack for themselves; what is it that they think society should look like and how willing are they to make that mental picture come to life? Do you want to find a woman like your mother or unlike your mother? What does she really look like, does she have a certain weight, hair colour, occupation etc. Do you know how her character should be like? Or are you just hoping for the best when you and the guys hit the town? What are you willing to bring to the table and what do you need to be brought to the table. A further deeper question is do you find yourself so mad that you want to slap her face or even want to tape her mouth shut? Do you think to yourself, if I can’t have her no one else can? Unpack the series of questions with your friends or just with yourself. Because most of you men are also ticking time bomb walking around like you have it all under control.

There need to be men who are also ready to sit with each other and talk to each other about the current ills we find ourselves surrounded with. I mean there are TV shows and debates where men talk about it but it seems the regular Joe in the streets is missing this conversation completely or maybe they are missing the viewing time of these shows, stuck in traffic. I don’t know, but somehow and somewhere the cause no longer sits on the shoulders of the women, we now need the men to sit up and discuss this with each other, amongst each other, for each other. 

We need to mobilise you, men, to think beyond your needs and beyond the bottle, beyond the slay queen, yellow bones, and trap queen. Beyond what you think the guy next door has better and have you men think bigger than that. Think long term. And if I  could fire my parting shot at the end, I now need men to think if their precious mothers or grandmothers were treated like this what would they do. How would he expect the perpetrator to unpack his stuff?