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by Mphuthumi Ntabeni

G21 Columnist

a cathedral of words

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DAY ONE - BURNING & LOOTING: MPHUTHUMI NTABENI examines religious and immigration frictions in the townships before relocating to Cape Town.

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA - I've a friend whom I grew up with who regards singleton status as chic, and celebrates it in fads like the 'Bridget Jones syndrome.' Actually the name of this syndrome confuses me since I thought, from reading the book, Bridget Jones was a chick in desperate need to fall in love, get married, and thus avoid spinsterhood.

The cult of Bridget Jones represents a broader cultural shift in the way singlehood and long-term commitment are regarded in out times. It used to be that being single was a temporary state. Today it is regarded as a permanent 'positive life choice,' according to soapbox language. We've managed to turn social atomisation and the personal insecurity of being single into a cause for celebration.

I'm told this Bridget Jones cult makes men feel redundant and also feel insecure about loosing their breadwinning roles, something called the 'sperm donor syndrome.' Apparently men's inability to establish a firm role that replaces their breadwinner status makes them ill-equipped for modern life, seeing themselves only as good for nothing but sperm donating. All this I give as a background to my friend's mindset.

"What I hate about Mbeki is his assisting the axe. He wants to live us with a legacy of femocracy,"once said my incorrigible bachelor friend when Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed our Deputy President.

He was now, as we sat at our favourite shebeen, pointing out examples like the German's appointment of its first female Chancellor, and Liberia's first head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to support his argument of 'femocracy in the offing.' I disputed him, naturally, which made him more convinced of his point since he regards me as, let's just say, less than manly. He felt vindicated with the appointment of Chile's first woman president, Michelle Bachelet. "Women are taking over Joe," he said as he threw his glass of beer down.

How he reconciles this argument of women taking over with clear statistics that - though women make for more than half the population of the world but still hold menial percentage of position of power, I don't know.

"The very notion of surprise when a woman is elected to a position of power betrays our hypocrisy in gender equality, and the bias against women" I put it out to him. Alas, it just made him more convinced since, to him, I belonge to the tribe of traitors who assists the distaff power.

Sometimes, when I listen to my friend, I'm reminded of something I once read, by Helen Rowland: Somehow a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever. This fits the character of my friend.

"Real men don't complain about petticoat dictatorship," my sister, who's a dyed-in-the-wool feminist, argued further with him, but I'm afraid she must as well been preaching to the trees. My friend feels he is a prophet, a distant voice in the wild, haplessness empowers him, like a messiah.

"Mark my words, the world has gone wrong in this issue, the wheel has turned full circle. Men will soon be oppressed by sisters."

There're a lot of confusing questions and assumptions about the need for a new masculinity in our era and I'm not only talking about the metrosexual or ubersexual trendy confusions either. But the most damaging thing, to both men and women, are prevalent assumptions, especially around feminist tables, that men are a problem. Some men believe this and start to act accordingly. My friend is not an exception in the society I hang around. Guys are mostly tokenised by feminists who perpetuate the stereotypes.

If a different ideal of manhood is to emerge, it ought to be shaped by the experiences of men taking on the challenges of real life rather than a cultural panic or accusations about how useless they are in a woman's world. In our house, for instance, I've assumed the position of looking after the kids, driving them to school and all; because my job of writing affords me more time to be around the house. I see nothing eccentric about it, and don't feel a lesser man for doing it.

I see the appointment of women into positions of power as sign of progress. On the other hand, I don't believe that were more women to be presidents of countries we'd perhaps have less wars of greed, more compassion for the poor and stricter laws against sexual offenders and child abusers. I'm not one of those who believe people acquire compassion from their gender, which makes me a suspect in my sister's eyes too. I just think the other half of the population has been getting a raw deal through the years; it's time we did something about it, especially men. Our era gets most things wrong, but the growing trend of appointing more women to positions of power is not one of them; this is a right direction in my book.

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