The Tribune

By IAN BETHEL

How do we frame men or make men? How does society see masculinity? Apparently, one’s sex determines one’s role in life and society. Men, as we understand them, are often seen as the providers, the breadwinners and unavailable emotionally, but physically strong. Women are the emotionally available ones; they are loving and nurturing but not the breadwinners, not physically strong and certainly not the providers.

These roles or social constructs determine how we are allowed/created to succeed in life. Ironically, society has begun to make these very roles impossible to realise. When we examine what we expect from men it puts these into sharp contrast with what we allow them to be. Boys are often discouraged from seeking out education and the possibilities therein. It is certain that some will need to be re-orientated away from academics, but all need a basic education that allows them to function in counting, reading, writing and the other essentials. However, society often tells young men, education is unimportant, go out and make money. Kimmel argues that society mis-frames men, and Edmondson in her 1990s study discusses how we make men. So, how are we making men? We send boys out to work rather than allow or encourage them to do homework. This is understandable given the dire economic times. We see them in super markets packing bags and taking those bags out to cars. (The Bahamas is on the list of countries that needs to stop child labour). Yet we ignore the signs around us.

We discourage them from learning while they are actually in school by creating curricula that do not fit in with their developmental needs at their various stages. Then we tell them that they will amount to nil. What else do they hear and see than society having low to no expectations of them?

Once again drawing on the Minnis et al. paper discussed in the last article, if 54 per cent of inmates at Her Majesty’s Prison noted that they had dropped out of high school, the indicator shows that there is something terribly wrong with the way we view education and the way education is delivered. But, the government knows this. If 48 per cent had been expelled or asked to leave and there was an overwhelming majority of both groups from the public school system then a serious indictment can be levelled against the system. If these are overwhelmingly male, as the study shows, what else can they do but turn to a less than ambitious life? Once young men have a police record, what then? Their options are sorely limited due to the fact that no matter how trivial the infraction that led to the arrest and/or confinement, their future in mainstream employment is bleak; the thinking that leads to this once a criminal, always a criminal mentality is clear in society.

Pushed down a road they did not necessarily see themselves taking, many young men see few or no possibilities outside of questionably legal activity. Of course, society knows all of this, and the government is intimately acquainted with all the studies done on youth underemployment, under performance and underdevelopment, but it is too expensive a problem to fix outside of sending the under performing young men to jail. Yet we get tougher on crime, rather than look for proactive alternatives.

On the other side of this, is the home. Mothers often pressure young men to seek employment and forget about books, ‘dey only ga make you sof’ anyhow’. So, we see packing boys in shops well into the school day, not only after school. No home support is provided for homework. Parents don’t have time or the capacity to do the work or simply aren’t interested.

Our environment breads consumerism. The almighty dollar is more important than anything else, notwithstanding the fact that bringing in dollars requires skills and training. The latter two are often overlooked and undervalued. So, we are left with low-wage makers who are frustrated once they realise they are unable to rise above a certain level through licit means. Worse, hard work is scoffed at. Hard work is for silly people, ‘i’s better to tief than to work hard’, are apparently socially accepted ways of thinking. Youths can, though, rise to prominence through socially-condoned yet illegal means. Two of the best examples of this are the hero worship of Dudus in Jamaica and Ninety locally. These two men are not anomalies, they have become the popularly sanctioned norm; the bad man has come to defend society that the state has so utterly failed. Sadly, society has also failed in its job of demanding true representation, results and accountability. Society has framed young men as bad men, the state has framed students into failing, and the popular image is the drug lord, what options do they have? The ‘dummies’ are quick studies.

• Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, Associate Professor in the School of English Studies at the College of the Bahamas, has written extensively on race and migration in the Bahamas, cultural creolisation and gender issues. Direct questions and comments to iabethellbennett@yahoo.co.uk.