The transition from boyhood to manhood has been a critical journey for me and for every young man my age. The palpability of that which I had to learn, unlearn, relearn and over again within a short space of time was pretty discomforting. It almost feels as though you do not have and you have never had a footing since birth. The challenges are real, rife, and run deep. The social and familial expectations are heavy and hefty – the society and family expect that you have had enough guidance so the training wheels need to be off. I do not even want to think of the subtle undertones of man up that lay in the voice, and gaze, and breath of parents, siblings, friend, and the entire social structure.
When you finally recognise the need to cross the boyhood boundary into manhood, you simply feel lost in a maze of your own and you could remain so and keep running back to being a boy. Because it is simply scary to know that you are a man now and there is more required of you that you have been prepared and trained for. Even in this more socially digital context of our day, we would expect that our collective expressions and perspectives would create a more conducive environment for boys to have a kinder navigation toward manhood. But no. Things become more complex for the young man who is new to this role of being a man, leading to an interesting view of who a man is, what a man should be, when they should or should not be men, and how they should be men.
Men in our day have been viewed in the context of having potential, prowess, and ability at all cost and by all means – a reality that may have created equal positives and negatives (which we are almost nonchalant to). Men are always in the situationship of being pegged as the head, the lead, the top of the pack, the boss of the hierarchy and period, without a proper assessment of whether these men are ready for what we expect them to be, besides the true state and reality of the men. Thus, the man is left in quite a dilemma – the dilemma of who men are and should be, what they stand for and wat they should stand for, how they live and how they should live, the whys that guide and should guide their lives, when and where they should or should not be men, and whatever that runs in between. This nexus may have also shut men even more into their closets, muted their emotions, gagged their stories, and clearly not helping men to be men the way we may want them to be men or the way they even should live confidently as men.
This may have misled us on a path of ignoring so much and missing a lot of truths. And here goes:
What we may have ignored for long is that beneath the unmasked musk of elegant masculinity lies a boy who has had to become something he was not prepared for.
What we may have missed is that many are still boys who have just had to appear as men to fit in and have not necessarily grown, evolved, and become men.
What we may have ignored is the reality that social conditionings have truly defined masculinity as a superficial structure of gallantness, strength, wealth, and leadership that everyone should lean on regardless of the formidability of that structure.
In this digital post-truth age, where every individual is empowered with an opinion to share, we may have created an impossible reality for the 21st century man, especially in Africa – without financial prowess, they may not be man enough.
And oh, that leads me to how the digital society has sharply associated this to winning the attention of the woman, or attaining the conquest of laying with a woman. You may realise I did not position love as that trophy to be won because this new society of our dawn and day does not recognise the power of love that transcends these complicated dimensions of superficiality.
We may have absolutely subscribed to the concept that men only need to have pockets as deep as the Indian Ocean – wealth – disregarding potential, talent, expertise, time, growth, and the rivulets that run in between as connecting realities.
What we may have mistakenly accepted is that tiny thought that presents an idea that men do not need to be tilled and trained and prepared for the role of being a man. We have almost denied the real fact that boys must be conscientized, guided and empowered to become men.
And oh, we also thought that we may have gotten rid of the generic toxic masculinity that has trended especially in these 2020s. Little do we identify that the lack of preparation to equip the growth of boys into men, the socially constructed standards of who, what, and how a man should be, may have rather imploded the toxic grip on men, creating the reality that men are some items that simply need to fit the shelf society put together.
Today, we want to scream at men to show emotion, to speak up when in distress, to express their true state without any ounce of stoicism. We have highlighted Yet, the environment we have created for men is loudly dissipating any hope for men to exit that toxic cage and truly live without fear of their vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and seek the light of strength, growth, and evolution.
Today, we want to scream that men too need that mental empowerment that feminism and women empowerment has offered women from teen ages until they become women. Yet, we continue to ignore the reality of men in the face of family, career, marriage, fatherhood, self-actualisation, the unspoken competition in the world of growth, the midlife crisis, aging etc.
Even in my brief struggle with transitioning from being a boy to becoming a man, I am still wary of the realities of my thirties. What would be up in my forties? How does it look like in the fifties? I am not suggesting that that transition could have prepared me totally to know all these things. I am saying that at least, a properly prepared and guided transition would have meant a better psyche, a better understanding of the challenges, a better way of accepting what it truly means to be a man, a better impression of the social dimensions that bind men, and to strategies and think in an appropriate context to approach being a man.
It is indeed expedient to not only highlight these truths about the man in the digital age, but to tell stories that sincerely spark conversations about manhood and to inoculate the minds of men with socially relevant ideas and strategies to help men. Wait – that help men to know themselves, to express themselves, to influence and navigate narratives in a positive direction to create a better space for men wherever and whenever.
So, we are unmasking musk – what impressionably looks manly, masculine – to tell the story your mind and being has avoided to admit for some time now. We are stripping down the finesse, the financial steeze, the fashion, the forte, the frenzy to tell the uncomfortable, matter-of-factly, and certain truths.
Here we go.
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