MEN OF QUALITY AREN’T SCARED OF EQUALITY
A panel on ‘Masculinities, sexuality and HIV/AIDS’ provided insights into what African men are saying about masculinity and the role that men play in supporting the sexual health and rights agenda. Aernout Zevenbegen made the case for engaging the patriarchs in the process of dismantling patriarchy. From long distance truck drivers who purchase sex across borders, to men engaged in informal labour, Zevenbegen stressed the need to expand our focus and reach where sexuality education is concerned. For example, at a training held with Jua Kali workers in Nairobi, in 2001, when asked why they did not use condoms, several men responded that it was their task as men to ‘plant [their] seeds in as many pots as [they] can.’ Most interesting, however, was the progressive suggestion that came from a group in Botswana to expand the ABC campaign to include a ‘D’: ‘Abstain, Be faithful, Use a condom, and Do it yourself!’ Were it not for conservative religious fundamentalists, the promotion of masturbation could go a long way in supporting the HIV/AIDS prevention agenda in Africa.
Holo Machonda spoke about the Young Men and Equal Partners (YMEP) programme, which works with men in Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya to mobilise their communities to respond to sexual and reproductive health challenges in partnership with women. Because of misguided masculinity and male polarised power, men are at the centre of most sexual and reproductive health problems, Machonda argues. So YMEP is promoting the ideology that ‘Men of quality are not afraid of equality.’
A presentation on ‘Deconstructing and harnessing the ‘trophy hunting mentality’ amongst male university students in the fight against HIV/AIDS’ highlighted the need to conduct similar research in academic institutions in other parts of the continent. Nelson Muparamoto showed how ‘trophy hunting’[1], ‘one day internationals’ or ‘ODI’s’[2], ‘test matches’[3] and ‘territorial marking’[4] all play a role in constructing the kind of misguided masculinity that makes it difficult to promote a sustainable sexual health and rights agenda in academic institutions.
Sunday Akoh, coordinator of the Female Condom Project coordinator of Society for Family Health (SFH), looked at the role that men play, and should be encouraged to play, in promoting the use of the female condom in Africa. Akoh spoke about lessons learned promoting this project in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State, where there is the common belief that ‘All die na die’, which in pidgin English means ‘All men must die one way or another.’ This makes HIV/AIDS prevention programming quite difficult. Promoting the use of the female condom is one way to ensure that women have more control over their sexual health. But by calling it the ‘female’ condom, says Akoh, it has been made a women’s affair, making it more difficult to engage men in its promotion. Nevertheless, the project has enjoyed successes in Nigeria; as more men engage in the ‘female condom’ promotion campaign, more and more women are beginning to use it. Cost and accessibility have been a huge impediment in other countries, but a pack of two female condoms costs about US$0.25 in Nigeria, compared with US$2 for just one female condom in Kenya.
Sexuality discourses in Africa
Kavinya Makau and Zawadi Nyong’o
2010-04-01, Issue 476
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63525 (full article)
