Focus on the "burden" of manhood

It is hard to be a boy in South Africa these days. A recent survey of 30 schools in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province found that, across all races, male students and teachers experience uncertainty about their role and status and a sense of displacement due to the loss of their privileged space in society. White males feel threatened by the advancement of blacks and women, embodied in affirmative action programmes. Among black males, women's new status, coupled with poverty and unemployment, reportedly fuels a sense of futility and hopelessness. The study by Graham Lindegger and Pamela Atwell, from the School of Psychology at Natal University, examined how masculinity is constructed and maintained in schools to better understand how deeply-held notions of masculinity lead to high-risk behaviour for HIV infection among men and women. The findings were presented last week at a conference on men and AIDS, organised in Pretoria by the Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa of Voluntary Services Overseas. Activists and researchers from Southern and East Africa discussed how to enlist men in the response to the pandemic. Twenty years into the AIDS pandemic, the bulk of studies and interventions have focused on women and girls. While a key theme has been "men drive the epidemic", little funding and effort has gone into working with men, especially young men. Schools being institutions where "masculinities" are actively made, negotiated and regulated, the KZN study throws light on the troubled perception of manhood in the new South Africa. "Men and boys carry a burden of anxiety about being a man," said Lindegger. A key finding was that both teachers and students hold varied and conflicting views about masculinity. They are aware of changes in gender relations, but still hang on to old notions. Among these, certain elements in the concept of masculinity appear to transcend racial, cultural and class boundaries. These include heterosexuality, an "uncontrollable" sex drive, multiple sexual conquests, danger and risk taking, success and responsibility, dominance and control. "It is difficult for boys to look at girls as equals," said a pupil quoted in the study. "Teenage boys are hot flesh," said a principal. "To be a real man is to be a person who is not afraid to take risks," said a teacher. Among white students, risk taking centres on alcohol abuse, fast driving, heterosexual success and breaking rules. In black township schools, it includes sexual prowess, criminal activity and violence, the study said. At the same time, conscious of changing patterns of masculinity, teachers speak of the need to be gentle and caring, to respect women and to accept gender equality as expressed in South Africa's constitution. Most white teachers said that the traditional macho stereotype is restricting and damaging, but at the same time they assume a biologically rooted male sexuality and superiority. Teachers at black township schools in KZN reported a conflict between traditional Zulu beliefs on masculinity and more Western notions in intellectual thought of sexual equality. Noting the conflicting discourses about gender, the findings suggested that the dominant form of masculinity was changing. However, the study found "a deep level of conservatism" in the notion of masculinity, which does not bode well for HIV/AIDS prevention. On the positive side, the study found "some reassuring evidence" that both black and white girls act more assertively and refuse to comply with traditional stereotypes. But their assertive behaviour could provoke aggression from boys. Overt sexual harassment of girls remains a problem, especially at township schools. Interviewees attributed this behaviour to the need for boys to prove themselves in front of their peers. "For boys, sex is still a huge conquest thing," said one teacher. Similar conclusions from other Southern African countries were presented at the conference. In Malawi, a survey among 3,000 students in 50 secondary schools by Population Services International reported that the mean age for a first sexual encounter among boys was under 15 and just over 15 for girls. Nearly half of the girls and three-quarters of the boys were sexually active. Risk perception, however, was low: 47 percent of girls and 43 percent of boys expressed no concern about becoming infected with HIV. According to the Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service, boys in the region start experimenting with sex as early as aged 10 or 12, marry later than women and spend more time unmarried, experimenting with many sexual partners and becoming vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. "We need to challenge this destructive concept of manhood that men make all decisions, men need many sex partners, men don't feel comfortable discussing our sexuality," said Regis Mtutu, of Zimbabwe's Men Forum Padare/Enkudleni. Padare seeks to change gender stereotypes, reaching boys and men in schools, pubs, sports clubs and churches, where they can debate, in a non-threatening space, issues of sexuality, masculinity and power. Participants agreed that such efforts should be grounded in a culture of human rights that can bridge cultural differences and span the variety of situations men experience, for example, rural and urban, old and young, heterosexual and gay, single and married. The notions set out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights provide a common ground for the complex task of renegotiating gendered power relations, they said. "Besides deep changes in structures of society, what we need is a deeply spiritual transformation in the identity of men," concluded Lindegger.