PART II LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER 2 RELEVANT PEACE THEORY
2.4 THE CONSTRUCTION OF AFRICAN MEN
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counteract injustices and inequalities in society to experience real peace through non- violence and human development. A further development to positive peace is Christly peace, that is, peace in view of a relationship with God or someone greater. It explores ethics, morals and values in view of not only God‟s Law, but the Law of Nature.
Human beings are born good, and therefore they are rational beings and can make ethical decisions distinguishing right from wrong with compassion and empathy, necessary prerequisites to peace at all levels of society (Kaman, 2010). Peace education is grounded in philosophy that instructs non-violence, love, trust, equality, collaboration and respect for the human beings and all life on our planet. Skills include communication, listening, understanding different perspectives, cooperation, problem solving, analytic thinking, decision making, conflict resolution, and social accountability (Kaman, 2010).
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intergenerational transmission of violence were supported by the respondents' experiences and perceptions of violence within their own relationships. There was evidence of socialised gendered notions of male power and control, where violence is used to affirm masculinity (Kubeka, 2008). Being aware of the complexity of masculinities, this study will develop a better understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of young people in heterosexual relationships and clear understanding of other influences that affect young men attitudes and behaviour towards females. Rizzo (2008) argues that one of the best ways to understand how adolescents nurture and maintain their attitudes and beliefs is to more closely explore the family and peer contexts.
Epprecht (2006) defines hegemonic masculinity as a mesh of social practices productive of gender-based hierarchies, including violence that supports these hierarchies; that is, the unequal relations between females and males as groups.
Kopano (2008) argues that males become men after processes. It is in families that the process of development from babies to boys and boys to men is normally commenced; families which, with the help of available information and power, oversupply the bodies, minds, desires, and day-to-day practices of youngsters with images and ideas about masculinity.
Research has established, though, that “there are direct connections between violence and conflict with the way that manhoods or masculinities are constructed” (Barker and Ricardo, 2005, p. 24). From the body of literature the concept of hegemonic masculinity keeps on generating, it has been a way of talking about males that clearly gets resonance across many countries, a diversity of settings and disciplines. In association with the notion of masculinity, the notion of hegemonic masculinity brings more attention to, sticking to feminist thought, the understanding of manhood (as opposed to maleness) as a social practice that is developed in many forms.
However, there is much to be gained in improving an analysis of male practices and experiences grounded in social conditions as well as those things to be found in the psychosocial realities of individual males. Grounding itself on this terrain, this current study supports that masculinities are better seen as created at both the social and psychological levels, something males do and establish in ongoing activity in connection with females, to other males, but also in connection with their own
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personal lives. It is on this position where most researchers are challenged when answering such a question: how to examine males who are weak in relation to other males but at the same time belonging to a dominant gender group in relation to females (Kopano, 2008).
However, the possession of a penis needs to always be held separately from the achievement of masculinity, and more so from the cherished masculinity in a particular place. Given that maleness and masculinity are unlike it is understable that males have to engage in certain activities, learn to speak in particular ways, avoid certain topics and occupy a certain position in society to be considered as successfully masculine. The activities that go towards generating or encouraging masculinity comprise such things as working outside the home, avoiding subjects such as baby- feeding in conversation, and occupying positions of leadership, supervisor, manager and critically, “official” head of household (Adomako and Boateng, 2007; Hunter, 2005). Therefore, the successful control of men over women is accessible through a number of routes, some of these being relatively easier to travel than others, and the easiest of them all being that travelled with the ticket of age. The simplest way of achieving manhood is through attaining a certain age. Researchers indicate that “age and superiority” are very significant to the configuration of gender in Africa (Miescher, 2007, p. 254). The general point to highlight as far as masculinity is concerned is that age positions males in specific bio-psycho-cultural ways and then discriminates within and between genders. That is, in certain traditions, when a boy reaches a puberty, he is allowed to go through the rites of passage (Gqola, 2007), which if effectively completed, shifts him bio-psycho-culturally; from that time on, others within the culture are obliged to regard him differently – as a man and not a boy. The association of age and manhood is common in the calculus of gender domination. The most important feature of this relationship is that one part providing to male control is a quite active achievement (masculinity) while the other (age) is passive. Masculinity induces males to do certain things in order to be a man, that is, a male cannot do much but wait until he reaches the age where society permits him to vote, attend initiation school, gain employment, drive or marry. Here then an important avenue of examining and empowering African men opens up. This avenue emerges from the combination of passive and active elements in masculinity. This combination demonstrates how males are accepted and position themselves in
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becoming boys and men. On the one hand, manhood cannot but be achieved out of social, economic traditional and political forces; on the other, they strongly control their interior and get in contact with the external world. Males endorse their masculine identities by norms and regulations, and in positioning themselves consciously and unconsciously (Kopano, 2008, p. 525).
The construction of masculinity and its confirmation has its roots in everyday life. In his research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, Barker (2005, p. 5) writes that the chief mandate or social condition for attaining manhood in Africa, in other words to be a man is to reach at some level of financial autonomy, occupation or income, and then have a household. This social construction of masculinity, for instance, has consequences for young soldiers when they return to normal civilian life. They fear that they are no longer men. A study conducted in 1998 by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa highlights this situation, and indicates that those who served in African National Congress (ANC) forces perceived themselves as relegated to second-class status once returned to civilian life (CSVR, 1998). Peters et al (2003, p.114) also asserts that such men who have used power in settings of war are reluctant to return to normal life where they perceive themselves to be subordinate again. This situation relates to the Congo conflict, for it may be argued that some soldiers do not want peace and will continue to fight in order to carry guns and pursue behaviours that are equated with being men, though peace has been agreed upon.