What left me burning to write these lines was a debate in Nairobi the other day – so eloquently reported by the BBC’s Gladys Njoroge – on the theme, ‘Men under attack’. The theme got me scratching my head. Who is attacking us? Certainly it is not alcohol or drugs – for that would not be news.
Itching, I inched closer to the radio; my answer came soon: Women. Men, especially corporate men, are under attack from none other than the creatures that God made to complement us. One Nairobi man sounded particularly bitter as he explained that he used to pay rent and meet other basic costs of running a home, but his woman had since captured that territory. Others complained about their women earning more money than them, wearing better trousers, driving bigger cars rather than your feminine Starlet, etc.

By the time the BBC reporter in Nairobi signed off, I was convinced corporate men are in serious trouble, only we do not realise it. If we know it, then we are suffering silently or we just don’t know how to defend our turf. Because we are silent victims, what is screaming from the TV, radio and glossy magazine pages are the often erroneous views of our attackers.

Under the pretext of being ‘socially correct’, many men, suffering silently, are abdicating their leadership roles. And the biggest casualty is humanity’s oldest institution – marriage.

That is why this matter needs urgent attention. My self-assigned role here is, first of all, to speak for the right-thinking men of this continent. As men we cannot look on as the foundations of social order are threatened by an ensemble of youthful women overwhelmed by their newfound money and social status.

But make no mistake; I do not hate women. If anything, I respect women and children more than fellow men, which is why I am a happily married father.

Instead, I am out to explain to womenfolk what can work and where they are going astray in marriage. After consulting many men, I find that we generally agree on what the problem is, but either we do not agree on the way forward or we are too shy to say what must be done.  In my dissection of the problem, I will be REALISTIC and won’t be bothered by our sisters’ flawed fantasies and idealism.

The question of leadership in an institution as central to society as marriage cannot be left to utopian dreamers and pseudo-revolutionaries, rather it must be addressed by facing often discomforting realities of our times.

The truth is that many of today’s urban women are more privileged than our grandmothers. They are loaded with university degrees, big jobs and loads of money. Whereas your traditional housewife was expected to kneel before her husband to ask for money for panties and pads, today’s corporate or business woman maintains her own 4×4 wheels and can afford an expensive holiday to Dubai or Durban.

Ideally the husband of such a woman should be happy – after all these men often strive to secure job placements for their spouses. Instead, Africa’s corporate husbands are apparently a miserable lot. But who’s to blame for this crisis, and where do we go from here?

by UNCLE SAM