Men’s attitudes to women

In Africa, if you want to insult a boy or a man, you insult his mother or his sister. If you tell any man or boy that you saw his sister or his mother having sex in the local bush with someone of low class or an unauthorised person, you may be the one to bear the brunt of the man’s anger.

Mothers are respected to the highest level, but that is as far as respect for women goes. The same man who thinks his mother is the most revered woman on earth does not in any way shape or form imagine that his children’s mother deserves the same respect. He does not think that other men’s mothers may deserve the same respect. The Southern African woman is only second to the Islamic woman in how badly she is treated by the men.

The stupid thing is that the men’s attitudes towards women are caused by their mothers. The Southern African mother breeds her sons to be the prime enemy to women. Women have total control of their sons during the children’s formative years. They could give the boys any attitude they with them to have, but they choose to steer them towards this path. The reasons are complex but put of it is because the boys are traditionally bred to be the family breadwinners. Having a good attitude to women bred elsewhere may threaten the boy’s willingness to give his mother some money.

Buy the time he gets married, the mother still wants his money and thinks his wife and children deserve less than she does. The wife and mother in law fall out but when the wife has her own boys, she gives them the same attitudes that caused her to suffer. The cycle of poverty of reason goes on.

Then the women started biting back in the form of HIV. For the first time in the culture of Southern Africa, it can be shown that the man is weak, devoid of reason, vulnerable and not that protected by his mother. He can pretend to be all powerful and menacing, but just one sex session with a positive sex worker, whom he can insult, beat up, refuse to pay or even chase out in the middle of the night, can change his whole life, that of his children, and best of all, that of his mother, the woman who gave him his attitudes.

HIV is an equaliser, but it only affects the arrogant man with a bad attitude towards women. Those moderates remain unaffected. Almost all clients will always tell the sex worker the wife does not understand them, meaning, “ I cannot lower myself enough to talk to the mother of my children nicely”

HIV has been a good tool for biting back at the arrogant man. Those who remain will hopefully teach their children respect for women. For the women who die in the process, lets treat it as a worthy crusade, a price worth paying for the folly of those women who breed this kind of men.