Philip Zimbardo (www.ted.com) gives an impressive lecture on "The Demise of Guys". It gave me reason to consider the status of South African men.
One imagines they have tremendous gender privileges due to the entrenched patriarchy - and they do. They enjoy little gender discrimination when caught cheating and remain economically advantaged over women.
However there is another side to the South African man. For each woman killed by a man 6 men killed by another man. Men have poor health as being a 'real man" means showing no physical weakness. There are few places, if at all, where men feel comfortable going for VCT. So they seldom know their own HIV/AIDS/STI status.Which means their sexual health is compromised.
Similarly to trends in USA, South African men are dropping out of school and underachieving overall compared to girls.
Due to encouraged high risk behaviors, men are more likely to die in car accidents, train accidents and their encouraged alcohol abuse facilitates more risky behavior.
Violence is their language of love, resulting in terrible pain for women- and themselves as men. Multiple partners concurrently leads to spread of HIV/AIDS/STI's but this is a male culture of reward for sexual conquests so the permission to sex as many people as you desire, at the same time, has become a norm.
What about the Men who have Sex with Men? South Africa can no longer deny this is part of our "culture" - when it comes to sexual diversity, we are no different from other countries. We simply need to remove the stigma of MSM and allow these men access to good health care services as they have the same rights as women and all men.
I appeal to men to be responsible citizens of our country and take advantage of support services offered to you- for your health, your sexual health and relationship distress. You have no choice if you are wantign violence against women to stop.
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