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Last week one guy posted a column in the Pretoria News about how culture and the media were still pulling us back to acient years regarding how women were treated. He declared his love and respect for women and disagreed with the way TV ads always displayed women as trophees or blondes. 

Another man in Reporter.co.za (where i'm also a writer there) asked why women had to be treated any different and special. He even said he hated being a gentle man.

My surprise is, isn't it amazing and interesting how people can have opposite views about the exact same thing! 

Below I paste their views: I'll start with the good man and the bad one will follow. Which man do you agree with? what are you own views regarding gender equality and respect for women.

The Good:
In a South Africa today we talk about gender parity and the liberation of the women yet there are a number of things that are making our course difficult. The first of those is what I call “double jeopardy”. Here, we all know that (particularly African) men still pay lobola for their brides. 

This is fair and well and I am not against lobola. It is part of our culture and as such it has a significant meaning.
That is (loosely put) to bind not only the two love birds but to create a lasting bond between their respective families.
The problem I have with the practice of lobola in other instances is where it is done by those who do not understand its meaning. To them it means trade – the man buys the wife and the wife becomes a commodity. 

Today we have black diamonds who have wallets as heavy as an ounce of gold and who can easily throw cash, cows and all that is required for lobola, but some of these men are not educated about culture to an extent that after they had paid lobola, they then treat their wives worse than slaves, this while they benefit from other transformation programmes like BEE. 

So the essence of this is that let’s educate our children about our cultures and maybe we may contribute to the struggle for total emancipation of women, our mother, wives, sisters and daughters.
The other fraternity that hinders the women’s fight for liberation is the media, particularly in the area of advertising.
Adverts sometimes continue to perpetuate the notion that the woman’s place is in the kitchen. With the exception of a few adverts like Mr Muscle, most others are about women cooking, washing, cleaning and doing “olden-times” women chores. 

Take Tastic rice for instance, the kids say the rice tastes like their mother’s rice, In the Robertson’s advert it is the woman who cooks for her parents; sta soft – the kid says goodnight mom when he smells the jersey; the OMO, Sunlight, Surf and even Maq Maq, the people responsible for doing the washing are women.
I can count a number of other adverts that are really taking us back to old days of patriarchal myths. The interesting part is that adverts about cars are about men and boys. 

The Mercedes has a boy who plants a small Mercedes so that it grows; the Toyota Yaris advert depicts a daddy who drives the young boy to the party, in the Hyundai advert it is a man who talks about the safety of the car.
It is most important to pay attention here because of the influence that television has on our children.
The point I’m trying to make is that the struggle for total emancipation of women is everyone’s responsibility.
Thus we cannot plant a seed of patriarchy and expect to reap the fruit of equality or gender parity. 

The life I live (as with a number of other men) is the one where I cook, wash dishes, clean, do laundry, change nappies, fix the car and share all these responsibilities with my woman.
I rest my case.
(The opinions I raised about the different brands in this article are not meant to harm them and are without prejudice, and are not those of the newspapers that publish this article; I hope they see them in the light of nation-building)
Andrew Makhiwesizwe Motha,
Arcadia


The Bad:
I hate being a gentleman

By N. Ntsane
N. Ntsane he will treat women as he sees fit.

Some people (mostly women) immediately label me as sexist when I tell them that. They say I do not want to respect women or treat them the way that they “should” be treated (who determines that by the way?). And they wonder if I will ever get married at this rate! My question is: what is a gentleman and why in the world should I be one?
The emotional aspects of this argument can be sensed more from the female side than the men, except those who have been made to adopt the perspective that it is the “right” thing to do. But why is it right? Why should I show more reverence for the female than for the male?

A gentleman, I’m told, is someone who “treats women well, opens doors and respects women, puts their needs first” etc. So it seems that treating women well gets you bracketed into the “gentleman” arena.

What if I do NOT want to get up to give the female my seat in a crowded train/hall/office? What happens when I choose to eat first instead of allowing the female to go before me? Is the age old assumption that “men eat like pigs” the ruling thought when it comes to food? I think not!

The theory of gentleman comes from a European/Victorian era and according to African cultures, this does not apply. The women do not eat first at supper, the males get first preference and most males do not cook at all. This is seen as tribal and oppressive, not allowing women the freedom to be treated as equals. To a large extent, this is true; there were those men who treated their wives as slave. Does it mean the females are not respected though?

I treat women as I see fit. Does that mean badly? No, it means I treat them as any human being should be treated. Respect and courtesy are a two way street, not a one way process.

Being a gentleman is culturally specific, even though it is seen as a universal theme and what women expect of men; yet if a man expects his wife to cook for him, it is seen as oppression in the making. And yet, who said the man wants her to cook EVERYDAY? 

There you have it boys and girls: which one is your man!

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