CHAPTER THREE
MASCULINITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF SOUTH(ERN) AFRICA
Manhood is an evolving social construct reflecting some continuities but many more changes. In talking about manhood, we are inevitably talking
about history (Stearns 1990:3).
3.0 Introduction
Representation and constructions of masculinities among the Mighty Men’s Conference (MMC) must be situated within the ongoing debates on men and masculinity studies in the South(ern) Africa context. Could it be that there are significant socio-cultural, political, economic and religious histories that shape and continue to shape changes which inform representations of masculinities in South Africa? It is important to take note of the socio-economic, cultural and political histories of masculinity in the South African context in order to engage Buchan’s faith discourses which seek to recreate Christian masculinities among Charismatic men. I therefore present in this chapter a brief overview of literature on masculinity in South(ern), South Africa.
and Lindsay (2003:1) allude to the fact that although gender has become a major research focus in African studies during the past twenty years, men have rarely been the subject of research on gender in Africa. Research in masculinity is therefore an opportunity to engage the connection between representations of masculinities in this context of study while engaging the intersections of religion, gender and other factors.
Literature reveals that the study of religion with specific attention to gender is a very recent phenomenon (King 1995:11). In Africa, the link between the study of religion and masculinity is even more recent and an emerging field (van Klinken 2012:216) with an increased interest noted in the past few years. This observation addresses Morrell’s (2001b) concern on how in the past relatively little work with a specific focus on masculinity had been published in South Africa. With literature increasing in this field of research, the intersections of religion and changes in gender relations as forces that necessitate inquiry in African masculinities remain crucial.
Three sets of literature need to be highlighted in relation to major notions of masculinity in South(ern) Africa. First, I show some representation of masculinity in Pre-colonial Africa and how the intersection of colonialism and Christianity impacted on shaping representation and constructions of masculinities. Second, I present representations of multiple hegemonies of masculinity in South Africa during the Apartheid era. Third, I highlight the increased interest and response towards men and masculinities studies in Southern Africa from a religious and theological perspective.
3.1.1 Pre-colonial African Masculinities and a Quest for ‘Victorian Manliness’
Precolonial African masculinities were by and large socially constructed, fluid, with ambiguous meanings and differed according to cultural, historical settings, and time (Barker and Ricardo 2005; Lynch 2008:11; Mutunda 2009:30). The available literature confirms that various African communities have varying indigenous definitions and
is a historical concern that scholars have questioned. King (1995:9) for instance shows that the reason why gender studies mainly focused on women and became almost identical with women’s studies was because women have been voiceless for so long. King (1995:5) further contends that it is important to consider not only the construction of femininity but also that of masculinity, especially as far as it is grounded in specific religious teachings, and analyse it critically.
representations of manhood associated with war or being warriors, while others were associated with farming or cattle-herding (Barker and Ricardo 2005). These are also defined by tribal and ethnic group practices through a multiplicity of versions, values and ways in which men practice and express masculinities (Lindsay and Miescher 2003:4).
Central to the sustainability or success of the constituent families, was also the socialization of boys into manhood. Attaining the status of manhood required observance of certain cultural rites and initiation practices (see Lynch 2008:12).30
Ideally, in traditional Africa, it was not enough for a man to achieve a socially recognised status of manhood through cultural initiation practice. Although times have changed and most cultures have been influenced by western representations of what is required of a man; the cost that came with acquiring the status of manhood also required men to start a family. It is, was, and is still the case that a ‘man’ is expected to be able to have work and provide for his dependents, and own property (especially land, cattle and livestock).
This is often traditionally bestowed upon the young men by older men (see Barker and Ricardo 2005:5-6). To a large extent, it is evident that male power from senior men in the community also plays a great role in constructions of masculinities within a traditional African context. To be able to protect and provide is said to enhance a man’s social recognition, and his sense of manhood. This is seen through the importance given to the concept of the “big man,” i.e., a successful and a hardworking man who has acquired social admiration. Holland (2005:122-123) and Miescher and Lindsay (2003:3) have shown that in pre- and early-colonial Africa, the “big man”31 archetype offered perhaps the most established model and enduring image of African masculinity that required specific masculine performances at numerous social levels.
The household therefore became a vital space through which masculinity was constructed and performed. Men were expected to possess qualities that were not feminine. Their identity as adult men was attained by entering into marriage where responsibilities of being providers and protectors were stressed. As such, patriarchal
30 Research shows that circumcision ceremonies served a supportive function in that knowledge about cultural beliefs, male-female relationships, appropriate adult roles and conflict resolutions are communicated to the men by community elders (see Barker and Recardo 2005; Lynch 2008). However, it must not be generalise that all African cultures practice circumcision as an initiation intended to socialise boys into manhood.
31 The success of the “Big man” (in most cases fathers, chiefs or elders) was measured not only by material wealth, but by the appearance and loyalty of familial and other followers—especially a large number of wives, children and dependents (see Holland 2005).
norms of masculinity remain at the centre of traditional African indigenous representations of manhood as sharp distinctions between men and women.
Further, it could be argued that representations of masculinities changed with the coming of western imperialist ideals of manliness while some indigenous practices related to
‘ideal’ manhood were reinforced with the coming of Christianity. In this case, it is important to note the shift in emphasis and understanding of what it means to be manly.
For instance, Morrell (1998) notes that in South Africa, colonialism itself often confronted local patriarchies with colonising patriarchies, producing a turbulent and sometimes very violent aftermath.
Barker and Ricardo (2005:12) contend that from the time of Africa’s colonisation by Western imperialist nations, African men and manhood have often been constructed in relation to European models of manhood. In actual fact, men have been exposed to new ways of understanding power and dominance. This is informative to this study in that this is arguably an important factor that influenced representations of masculinities in Africa. Are there any connections between Christian missions and colonial patterns on gender construction? Interesting to note is the work of William Barnhart (2005:731) who points out that Evangelicals consistently described a successful missionary as one who combined physical courage and moral virtue, where missionary manliness, with its stress on both physical and moral attributes, prefigured the male image found in Victorian writings on masculinity32 that emphasised similar qualities. For this reason, Anne O’Brien (2008:68) asserts that religion has long been acknowledged as playing an important part in the construction of nineteenth-century British Imperial manhood, particularly by fostering masculine Christianity in all its complex forms.
It follows therefore that emphasis placed on the notion of ‘manliness’ as missionaries worked to Christianise Sub-Saharan Africa and Africa as a whole need not be underestimated in relation to how imperialist masculine cultures in the West influenced indigenous forms of masculinity. As a consequence, the forces of colonialism and
32 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the ideal of Victorian masculinity was an unquestionable feature of middle class male society in Great Britain and the United States. Victorian masculine idealism is seen as the by-product of manliness that had evolved into a phenomenon of ‘muscular Christianity’ which tended to exaggerate an excessive commitment to muscle development and physical activity at the expense of Christianity. Not viewed in exclusion, the concept of femininity in the same period demanded of women a certain docility befitting the gendered image of a Victorian lady, a commitment to domesticity and subservience (see Mangan and Walvin 1987 in Barnhart 2005).
Christianisation require further interrogation in order to better understand the historical constructions of masculinity in Africa. Throughout Sub-saharan Africa, agents such as missionaries and labour recruiters had an influential role in transforming men’s gendered relationships and identities in the early colonial periods (Morrell 1998:620; Miescher and Lindsay 2003:14). It is certain that with the coming of the Western missionaries, indigenous African understandings of what it meant to be a man were exposed not only to new challenges but also representations which came with missionary Christianity and Victorian ideals of manliness that demanded new patterns of gender practices. Esme Cleall (2009:233) for example argues that missionaries in Southern Africa advocated the indigenous adoption of the British Protestant gender system in their efforts to teach needlework to girls and woodwork to boys in a covert attempt to impart an interpretation of Christianity that was heavily gendered.
With the same vigour, the missionaries strove to convert kings, elites and wealthy household heads as those who epitomised dominant masculinity with a belief that the difficulty of Christianisation was the problem of dominant African masculinity (McKittrick 2003:41). In order to succeed in their mission enterprise, McKittrick (2003:43) has pointed out that the Western missionaries used Christian conversion as a strategy to draw young men away from the influence of their fathers and the kings, to life in the mission stations as a pathway towards Christian obedience and discipleship.
Hence, to the missionary, baptism (i.e., the change of name) became a movement away from indigenous masculinities which were based on loyalty to fathers and kings (2003:43).
Having been introduced to the European domain of masculine superiority, Miescher and Lindsay (2003:11) observe that junior African males chose Christianity and labour migration as alternative routes in the acquisition of masculine power. They assert that missionary Christianity used mission schools which had dominated the field of formal education as sites to shape boys into certain kinds of Christian men (2003:13). As McKittrick (2003:43) has shown, literacy and reading came to occupy an important place in the construction of Christian masculinity and marked a new masculine status. This led not only to conflicting and competing notions of masculinity among indigenous men but also to a time of crisis over male authority. In capturing the impact that this crisis had on men and gender relations, Nkolika Aniekwu notes:
By inserting the ethics of Western Christendom, the colonial regime became the major force in changing sub-Saharan African women’s symmetries and identities during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. …The changes affected gender relations through overt support for ‘patriarchy’…men’s roles progressively separated from women’s roles in every sphere of society. Across the continent, ‘civilising’
missions sought to totally reconstruct African society and culture. The result was that men struggled to achieve autonomy from the intrusive colonial force and to revalidate control over their social lives. Conjugal relations of the new marriage systems also tended to solidify the notion of male dominance within marriage (2006:146).
The argument therefore is that such changes reinforced a gender hierarchy that was already present in traditional indigenous Africa before colonisation and the introduction of Christianisation. Even so, I posit that traditional masculine ideologies have undergone changes influenced by the media, Western ideals of manhood, imperialism and colonialism and religious perceptions of masculinities.
Based on what I have discussed so far, it is vital to look at how colonialism impacted on men in South Africa, thereby influencing how masculinities have been represented and reproduced. The discourse suggests a complex and contradictory description of what it meant to be a man in the lived realities of Apartheid South Africa.