The Tribune

By IAN BETHEL BENNETT

SITTING on the porch the other day, I was shocked by the music that blasted across the neighbourhood presumably for the community’s enjoyment. Overtly sexual lyrics: words referring to sluts and hoes and F-bombs abounded. Graphic instructions for performing sexual acts with women. Not only were the lyrics shocking, but the fact that the entire neighbourhood was invited to attend this event was equally disturbing.

The music that wafted through space emanated from a neighbour’s car with doors and boot open while he washed it. Children rode their bikes around close to him as he painstakingly detailed the car. If the neighbours could enjoy this unsolicited pleasure, what of the children, passive receptors, who must have been around 8 and 10?

Surely, this music will have some impact on them later on. We wonder why the children perform violence. We also wonder why youngsters behave so badly in school and out, why teenage pregnancy continues to be a problem, but more so, why young women are acting out in male-patterned ways. When daggering was big, they practiced it in school dances and clubs. The violence therein was obvious yet publicly condoned.

Last week we addressed the lack of positive male role modelling in our society. Here, the neighbour was doing what was expected of him, ignoring the boys, washing the car and entertaining himself, a culturally accepted model. Yet, how much difference could a change in music make to the passive receptors’ thoughts?

If all women are bitches, hoes, sluts and mattresses to these young boys’ ears, in the home or through popular music, what do they grow up expecting? True, they can choose to act and think differently, but when the male in their lives provides this model, what options do they have?

A perusal of the Bahamian papers this week would attest to seriously mixed messages about gender-based violence and sexual assault. How can gang rape be so common? What drives this? Firstly, it is not sexual. It is about power and disempowerment. That consideration leads back to Dr Allen’s observations. Much like police brutality is a sign of other problems, gang rape, increasing suicide rates and violence are indicators that something is afoul. In other countries, Puerto Rico, is an example of this, domestic violence is more prevalent among police, a high-stress job with little if any positive input or outlet.

The music that unwittingly entertained the entire neighbourhood the other day is certainly a factor that negatively influences ways of thinking. Studies show that these lyrics in music have a negative impact, especially when coupled with other forms of popular culture that carry similar messages and worse with other sociocultural stresses and expectations. What can we do? Men can begin to realise that these challenges are normal.

CariMAN, a regional group of men working with men to promote positive masculinities as well as to eliminate violence against women, strives to shift this paradigm. The men in this network reach out to men and boys to create positive spaces where men can talk and be heard on men’s issues, like the violence they experience in their lives, the undermining they may feel by earning less than women, for example.

Though society teaches that men do not speak, nor do men need to speak, we actually do; we need to do both. What if the only message we hear is that we are expected to dagger the woman in our lives, and they do not want to be daggered, so we attempt to force them? Is that wrong? To whom can we speak?

Like this issue, there are countless. Men need to talk about society’s expectations of them, and not feel they are being unmanly or feel that women will belittle them, as is often the case. Dr David Allen wrote about men committing suicide because of the socio-cultural and economic pressure put on them to provide, especially when they are under-educated and forcibly unemployed.

Organisations like CariMAN, men’s church groups, as well as other civic bodies that truly work on issues that concern men, are essential in efforts to turn the current in this trend. However, bringing men in to discuss these expectations and pressures is the challenge.

The local chapter of CariMAN was represented at the International Women’s Day event on March 8 by president Dr R. Roberts and the response showed that men in society are in need of conversations that combat misogynistic messages that boys often hearing about men beating and forcing rough sex on women.

People need to take a more proactive approach to undoing the negative impact of such lyrics as well as negative cultural influences that promote unhealthy masculinities. Ultimately, the majority of listeners are passive receptors and perform these expectations later. Positive men’s groups like CariMAN can provide tools to battle such misogyny.

What do you think? Send comments questions to coaching242@yahoo.com. Michelle M. Miller is a certified Life-Coach, Leadership Expert and Author of Take The Lead. She is the CEO of TTL Coaching Strategies and founder of the Girls Leadership Coaching Club.