Three years ago, social media in Nambia burst with a potent joke of a men’s conference to coincide with Valentine’s Day in February. This imaginary men’s symposium on the welfare of men as far as relationships are concerned coincided with the annual Valentine’s Day, the February 14th celebration that marks the triumph of romantic love. It was not by coincidence that the two days overlapped; it was a deliberate move by men to counter Valentine’s Day that puts undue financial pressure on some men.
In promoting the conference, a fake group of men casually dressed stood resolutely to vent their frustration at the exorbitant gift-giving to their partners on Valentine’s Day. They resolved to avoid such obligation by booking their ticket to the invented men’s conference. The rate at which the message about this imaginary symposium spread was amazing since it loudly spoke to what most men were thinking. From then, this imaginary conference has been held every year. At the conference, men assumed they would broadly discuss managing the home affairs rather than buying gifts for their wives or girlfriends on Valentine’s Day.
As the Day draws closer, we are reminded through the various social media platforms about the annual supposed Men’s Conference. Perhaps it is prudent to discuss more details about this conference and its impact if made real in reducing violence and abuse against women and girls.
With an unprecedented rise in violence against women in Namibia, numerous initiatives have been instituted to curb the menace. Nevertheless, these efforts have not yielded the desired results. Evidently, the tenacious nature of violence perpetrated against women and girls in Africa is mainly associated with gender power relations reflected in commonly ascribed and accepted social norms in Africa (Segueda, 2015; Mazibuko, 2016; Klugman, 2017; Mukungu & Kamwanyah, 2020).
The patriarchal African traditions and cultures account for the persistent unequal distribution of resources and power between men and women. These beliefs and traditions encroach on home affairs and are equally supported by social institutions that sustain gender inequality. These established norms perpetuate violent behaviours and attitudes and make it difficult to eradicate and prevent violence against women in most African countries. Namibia is one of those nations on this devastating track.
Furthermore, due to the patriarchal nature of our social systems, abusing women in whatever forms has been considered normalcy of men’s being. On a worrying note, the practices are generally accepted by some men and women in many African societies. To a certain extent, women are deprived of their societal contributions to equitable living and essentially elbowed – out from peaceful contributive interactions within the male-dominated society. From this cold realisation, men and boys need to endeavour to stop the perennial surge of violence against women and girls. With this said, a fundamental question arises: could the purported men’s conferences be the solution to violence against women in Namibia? Yes indeed.
The Men’s Conference if realised with a different agenda, can present the opportunity of promoting positive masculinity. At this platform; men could mobilise themselves and commit to efforts to eradicate violence. The agenda at the Men’s Conference could be the driving effort, initiating and supporting the already existing frameworks on preventing violence against women and girls. Men would ffurther flex thoughts on actions to support zero-tolerance on violence against women and girls in Namibia.
The men’s symposium would be an ideal platform, where men may influence others to practice the art of positive masculinity to above vices that arise from negative masculinity. In this way, boys may grow with values that appreciate physical differences between men and women and thus foster peaceful societal co-existence between genders.
As men, let’s eradicate violence against women and girls. Our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, daughters, nieces, cousins, and our women leaders are equally made in the image of God and complete our existence. We may note that we have a stronghold in eradicating violence with a unit of purposes.
Finally, we may ask ourselves these questions, could the imaginary men’s conferences be turned into platforms to eradicate violence against women and girls? What roles are we playing as men to support efforts to eradicate violence?
I, therefore, suggest instead of advocating for men’s conference as a pretext to avoid buying gifts for spouses, we should organise men’s symposium on violence at the local, regional or national level to help address the issue of violence and abuse against women and girls.