Time for men to step up

In August, Women’s Month, I seem to have been faced with quite an emphasis on males, both men and boys. We reflected with the bishops on “Families in Crisis”. This was a response to the research report by the SA Institute of Race Relations on the state of families in South Africa which highlighted clearly that men—fathers—are not significantly present to their children.

Only one third of our children live with their biological father, and the most common form of family is the single parent, mother-headed household. Most children are deprived of their father’s presence and influence in their lives, although there may well be another “father figure” in the family.

Then I was invited to attend the launch of a campaign by the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a programme called MENCARE which also addresses the importance of fathers for their children. This organisation focuses strongly on the role of men as part of the gender question.

The SACBC Family Life Desk’s Family Ministry Leaders’ Conference of diocesan family coordinators and leaders of family movements also raised the topic. None of the family movements has a specific emphasis on men but all of them, in dealing with marriage, seek to empower both men and women in the context of their relationship, while those focusing broadly on family enrichment do address the men.

Couples for Christ has a men’s section and a men’s conference from time to time. A number of dioceses and parishes have a men’s sodality, such as St Joseph’s, or a Men’s Forum, or as it is known in one Johannesburg parish, “Men of God, Arise!”. But, let’s face facts, men are in the minority in the Church and often are also absent in the little church of the home, which is our chief area of concern.

There are cultural implications to all that, and with September being Heritage Month it is good to look at it from that angle. Men are not absent in society; they can be found in the workplace, the sports field, the taverns, clubs and bars. They are also academics, responsible businesspeople, breadwinners, husbands and partners, fathers to daughters and mentors to sons.

It is said that their needs are not necessarily sufficiently recognised in a world that has, out of a justified need, become quite aggressively feminist. Daniel M Pietrzak OFM in article titled “Male Spirituality Today” explores the topic. He refers to a number of books on the subject and the need for “the pursuit of authentic masculinity”.

From a cultural perspective he considers that there is value in the idea of time-out for self-exploration, such as the rite of passage initiation schools of traditional societies where a young man is guided and comes of age to assume new duties and responsibilities as an adult in his culture.

A second valuable observation is the concept of mentorship where an older, wiser man plays a critical role in male development into adulthood. Culturally, would that have been a father, a grandfather or an uncle? In the western social model it would most likely be the father.

Society has changed and continues to do so. Men’s work is no longer that of the hunter-gatherer; maybe some are still pastoralists, but the working world of today is pretty much unisexed. Girls, certainly in South African society on the whole, are educationally as successful as boys. We could ask whether particular masculine attributes—be they more macho and competitive or more gentle and cooperative—are respected, internalised and harnessed for the benefit of a complementary relationship between men and women.

Fathers are also sorely needed to do this personal striving for authentic masculinity as mentors for the future of healthy families and society. Boys will grow into men and will model themselves on those men.

Leaving “A Legacy of Peace and Justice”, as our family September theme promotes, requires that the men who mentor boys should be people of integrity, honest, just and fair, whether they are panel beaters or panel seaters on boards or leadership structures.

Family, Church and society have our work cut out to see that this happens, ideally building on what our cultures have to offer.