The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHEL BENNET

THERE seems to be more work than ever being done with men and boys around the world. More groups and organisations are developing who work to change the way men and boys are socialised and so become trained to behave.

In a recent large international workshop and conference on working with men towards achieving gender equality it became obvious that other countries and cultures are doing so much to try to get around this scourge of violence that men are meant to be responsible for, yet a tiny country that has so much possibility for creating positive change is actually just coasting along, doing many things that go against creating a healthier community for men and boys and for gender equality.

Nothing can exist in a community outside of the frame of culture. That is to say that the way we all behave is culturally determined. So the way boys and girls behave is determined by our culture. That fact that gender inequality is so high is also determined by our culture. Boys are seen as being in charge because this is the way we choose to raise them. We tell them that they are the head of the household, head of the family, yet we do not give them the tools that go along with this position. Rather, we set them up to fail. We show them that men must take whatever they want and that they must use violence to do so.

Then, when they respond violently in society, we tell them that they are criminal, and we marginalise them.

These problems are being worked through in many countries from the Southern Cone to Central and North America. Mexico and Brazil, Honduras and Colombia have serious problems with crime and violence and the fact that so many young men are socialised to behave in ways that only make the violence in society worse. They are born into a society that views them as nothing more than expendable capital. The state does not want them, but yet it teaches them that as men they must behave badly. As soon as they behave badly, the state seeks to destroy them by either incarcerating them or simply excluding them from mainstream society. Which is worse?

Many of these young men, because they are in fact very bright, get the message quickly.

They understand that they have no future, they are not allowed to be full citizens in the world where the schools they go to determine that they are less than those in charge. The state passes down messages in all its communication with these males that they are in fact not going to succeed in life. It will see that they fail. Tragically, hegemonic masculinity and the discourse of power determines the culture. It also determines how corrupt or not the society is.

Cronyism is a form of corruption that allows the money to rest in one of the top layers of society, but also teaches the same young males that are near the bottom that they will never amount to anything unless they do so through illegal means. The same top layer of society controls power and refuses to share. In order to protect itself from the chaos that it has created, it empowers police to control the streets. In the name of law and order, it strips whatever rights these young men might have. It does not seek to work with the social problems created and refuses to allow these young people access; it ultimately tells them that they have no place in ‘good’ society and they must accept this.

This top tier uses force and violence to control the same under class it has created. Once the community is infused with violence from the schools where they are taught they are nothing, to the police who beat them into better understanding that they are nothing, all they have to share with the community is more violence. State sanctioned violence, ultimately only creates more violence. Why is this important for men and boys?

Men and boys are taught that they are only allowed to be violent.

Their only avenue of expression is violence. They are not allowed to express any other language than the language of hatred, hardness and violence. At the same time, they are taught that in order to participate in the culture, they must not respond violently. We create environments where violence of all kinds is rife, but refuse to work to diffuse the violence and tensions in these communities.

In Mexico, a young boy growing up in a place like Ciudad Juarez will only have access to particular models of behaviour. He will only ever see what is in his barrio. He will never get to experience life of the middle class unless through the media or if he becomes a servant in a middle-class home, (but often, even this is beyond his position). So he will be trained by the leaders in the communities and will become their shields. He will do all the dangerous work for the drugs dealers until he gets caught, imprisoned, and then trained up into the next level of violent crime and/or trafficking.

After graduation from prison, he will move up the ladder of crime, unless someone can catch him and remove him from that environment. We see this time and again in films and on TV, yet we choose to ignore what it says about our own culture.

The level of violence and dysfunction these youth are exposed to translates into them being built for violence, much like cars and (some) dogs are built for speed and in some cultures cocks are raised to fight. We are creating the next generation of criminal as soon as we relegate young men to social exclusion and this unhealthy culturally-condoned yet condemned idea of male behaviour.

This may be a problem in Mexico and Brazil, however, the Bahamas is actually no different.

The state is failing most of its citizens, but it encourages them to believe that they are being well looked after. That way, the state retains control and society falls apart.

• For questions and comments, send an e-mail to iabethellbennett@yahoo.co.uk.