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What about the boys?

Our friends at Primestars, a company that specialises in facilitating youth development programmes, have led notable community projects in South Africa lately and succeeded in motivating other corporate players (like PPS) to get involved. During the COVID-19 lockdown period – when many kids struggled at home – they used cinema theatres (which were standing empty at the time) as theatres of learning. They facilitated extra maths and science classes to matric pupils (with social distancing protocols adhered to), under the banners of Saving The Class Of 2020 and Standing With The Class Of 2021. PPS was happy to be involved as a sponsor because education is close to our hearts and our professional ethos.

Their newest programme What About The Boys? – which they kicked off on 13 August – focusses on gender-based violence and is a first-of-its-kind preventative initiative centred around the boy child. PPS will again be involved, as this is a topic that needs the support of as many South Africans as possible. I attended the launch. The aim of redefining masculinity and repositioning men as allies, really struck a chord. This is because gender violence mostly originates due to males growing up without a strong example of leadership and what it means to be a man, from a father figure.

It took me back to a John Eldredge book that I had read many years ago: Wild at Heart. I dusted it off and read it again, it is quite a powerful book. Much of what I have to share in this blog – and almost all the quotes – are from Eldredge’s book.

But before we get to some of the messages from the book, a few statistics. In South Africa, only 2.2% of prison inmates are female (97.8% are male). In the US, the portion of females is somewhat higher (6.8%), but males are still well above nine out of ten of those that get incarcerated. FBI data from 2011 showed that males constituted 98.9% of those arrested for forcible rape, 88% of those arrested for robbery, 85% of those arrested for burglary, 83% of those arrested for arson, 82% of those arrested for motor-vehicle theft, 80% of those arrested for offenses against family and children and 78% of those arrested for aggravated assault. A 2013 global study on homicide by the United Nations found that males accounted for about 95% of all convicted homicide perpetrators worldwide.

I do not believe that I would be far off the mark by saying that most of the serious nonsense in the world – and particularly in South Africa – is due to us males. This includes not only male-to-female violence, but male-to-male violence too. But what is going on here? Many girls are also, sadly, subject to poor guardianship, poverty, deprivation, unstable living arrangements and inconsistent parenting in South Africa. All these factors increase the chances of becoming involved in criminality and violence. But why then, are the bad numbers so enormously tilted to males?

I believe that the answer to this question is to a large extent due to the way we were created. And then the absence of strong male mentorship.

Eldredge notes that the Genesis story tells us that Eve was created in the lush beauty of Eden’s garden. But Adam? Outside the garden, in the wilderness, the outback, untamed and only afterwards he was brought to Eden. And that danger and wildness, that longing for adventure, is written in the soul of every man. “The masculine heart needs a place where nothing is prefabricated, modular, non-fat, zip-locked, franchised, on-line, microwavable. Where there is room for the soul.”

Every man was once a boy. And every boy has big dreams of beating the bad guys; of rescuing the damsel in distress. How many parents have tried in vain to prevent their boys from playing with weapons? Forget it, because if a little boy is not supplied with weapons, he will make it from whatever sticks or materials he can find. “Little girls do not invent games where large numbers of people die, where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun”. In every man’s heart there is the longing for adventure, a battle to fight and the need to answer deep questions such as: Who am I? What am I made of? Do I have what it takes? Am I powerful? Yes, like it or not, but there is something fierce and wild in the heart of every man. As we have seen, violent crimes are not for the most part committed by women. A man is a dangerous thing.   

Why has God created men like this? Perhaps because God also loves wildness. If you have any doubt about this, spend time in a thunderstorm, walk in the African bush, swim in the ocean surf. Most of the earth’s wild places are not safe, it is pretty wild and dangerous … but it is good! “After God made all this, he pronounced it good. It was his way of letting us know that he rather prefers adventure, danger, risk, the element of surprise. This whole creation is unapologetically wild. And perhaps the biggest risk of all that God took was to give angels and humankind free will, including the freedom to reject him.”

Adam and Eve were not even out of Eden when life’s battle lines were drawn: good against evil. We were not born into a peaceful and tranquil world. No, not at all. Hardship and misery and suffering and evil are around us. Every day there are battles to be fought on many different battlefields. And in these battles Adam needs Eve and Eve needs Adam. Just as much of what is wrong and bad in this world is due to that wildness in men that has been channelled up the wrong alley, so is the energy and daring of decent males responsible for so much of what is right. Being powerful can be aligned to just and merciful power, as opposed to inequitable dominance. “Yes, a man is a dangerous thing. So is a scalpel. It can wound or it can save your life. You don’t make it safe by making it dull, you put it in the hands of the right person. A stallion is hard to tame. If you want a safer, quieter animal, there’s an easy solution: castrate him. A gelding is much more compliant. There’s only one problem: Geldings don’t give life. They can’t come through for you the way a stallion can. A stallion is dangerous all right, but if you want the life he offers, you have to have the danger too, they go together.”

Yes, the universal nature of little boys is to dream of one day being warriors. But warriors for a good cause. A man needs a battle to fight, a dragon to slay, a place for his soul to come alive. Yes, the boy is a warrior. But one day you might just need that boy to come through for you and defend you.

And women? They also have special roles, very necessary ones, but different ones. It is roles of nurturing, caring, life-supporting. Without Eve, Adam cannot survive, he depends on her.

Eldredge continues: “Once upon a time, as the story goes, there was a beautiful maiden, an absolute enchantress. She might be the daughter of a king or a common servant girl, but we know she is a princess at heart. Her heart is golden, her love true as an arrow. But this lovely maiden is unattainable, the prisoner of an evil power that holds her captive in a dark tower. Only a champion may win her, only the most valiant. Against all hope he comes, with cunning and raw courage. Much blood is shed, three times the knight is thrown back, but he rises again and eventually the dragon falls, the giant is slain. The maiden is his, through his valour he has won her heart. Now, why is this story so deep in our psyche? Every little girl knows the fable without it even being told. She dreams one day that her prince will come. Yes, every woman yearns to be fought for. Every woman wants to be swept up in an adventure, sharing in the adventure. Every woman yearns to be the beauty.”

Just like the world kills a man’s heart if it expects him to be tame and without adventure, it kills a woman’s heart when it tells her to act and be like a man. A man must know he is powerful, that he has what it takes. And a woman must know that she is beautiful and worth fighting for. “Yes, a man needs to be tender at times and a woman will sometimes need to be fierce. But if a man is only tender, we know something is deeply wrong; and if a woman is only fierce, we sense that she is not what she was meant to be.”

Today there is much gender confusion, probably never before experienced in the history of the world. Society struggles to make up its mind about men. But how can a man be true to his soul, to the way he was created, if the highest aim that society expects from him is to mind his manners? It is understandable that the world expects men to be and act much more in a feminine way, due to all the bad and the wrong that men has done. But is the answer to the problem trying to make of men what they are not, ignoring how they were created, or rather to accept their masculine nature and channel that wildness and energy to a good cause? But that would need mentorship and guidance, strong male examples, and that is where the problem is. A void of fatherhood is actually the problem. Males need males to bestow (the right) masculinity.  

Eldredge writes that masculinity must be bestowed and femininity can never bestow masculinity. A boy learns what he has and who he is from another man and from the company of other men. And ideally that other man who gives that affirmation: “You have what it takes!” is his dad. The traditional way of raising sons – for thousands of years – was for fathers and sons living in close proximity. The American poet Robert Bly has written: “When a father and son spend long hours together – which some fathers and sons still do – we could say that a substance almost like food passes from the older body to the younger.” And if the father is not there for whatever reason, then other father figures have to step in to fill that void. There is the beautiful African proverb that says: “It takes a village to raise a boy.” But the strong male figures are, oh, so important. Yes, males need male guidance, male examples and affirmation. It has been said that boys typically go through three stages: The very young years when the mother is the most important figure, then the stage when the father becomes most important and then, finally, the stage when other role players become very important. Eldredge writes: “Sometimes, when the mother clings, the boy will try to tear himself away, violently. This typically comes in the teenage years and often involves some ugly behaviour. She feels rejected and he feels guilty. But he knows he must get away.”

When a dad – or other strong male figures – is not there to raise, to guide, to set the example and to eventually bestow masculinity, then it is a recipe for trouble. And this, I believe, lies at the bottom of our crime statistics and gender violence in South Africa. Because there are such big paternal voids in our society.

It is not only humans that need strong male guidance, it is also in the animal kingdom. A few weeks ago I was privileged to do some mountain biking in Zimbabwe and Botswana at the Tour de Tuli. One of the dangers was elephants and we discussed the well-known story of an out-of-control gang of young adolescent elephants that roamed in the Pilanesberg nature reserve in South Africa some years ago. Game rangers discovered that this group of elephants had been up to much mischief, like attacking and killing white rhinoceros, the very rhino that these rangers had spent years protecting. Badly mutilated rhino carcasses were discovered everywhere and it was the work of the elephants. Why would they do it? It initially puzzled the game rangers, but then they figured out that this herd of young male elephants was like juvenile delinquents, they had grown up without role models. The problem goes back to when South Africa's largest conservation area – the Kruger National Park – had too many elephants. In those days there was no way to relocate the large adults over big distances, so it was decided to kill the adults and save the children, who were more easily transported to other parks. The intentions were good, but the programme created a whole generation of traumatised orphans thrown together without any adults to teach them how to behave. The answer was to eventually introduce big bull elephants. Six large bulls were brought over from the Kruger. They towered over the adolescents, and literally, apparently within hours, the teen thugs fell into line. No more rhinos have been killed since by the rampaging youngsters. Order was restored in the game reserve.

This story has been used in many academic papers as an example of the importance of a stable society and a father figure to provide boundaries for teen males. The young males that were in these elephant gangs originally had no template of good social behaviour and were at the mercy of their rampaging hormones, which was putting them at as much risk as those around them. But when strong adult males were introduced, the result was a happy ending for the elephants in Pilanesberg, for other species, and perhaps one that us humans can learn from.

Which is why I believe Primestars hit the nail on the head with their campaign when they say: If you want to make an impact on gender violence and on crime in general in South Africa, start with the boys and start with addressing the lack of male parenting and mentorship for the boys. Due to South Africa’s sad past – and many other socio-economic reasons – men for generations had to leave their families to earn money in faraway places, resulting in generations of males growing up without strong father figures. It is estimated that more than nine million children in South Africa grow up without fathers. A recent Statistics South Africa report states that only 32% of black children in the country grow up with their biological fathers present. In short, there is a tremendous fatherhood void in the country.  Which makes support structures and campaigns, like What About the Boys?, so necessary and so important.  

The wildness in the masculine heart is not per se a bad thing, no, it is the way men were created. It is bad when it is channelled the wrong way. But that longing for adventure, the need to prove that “I am a man and I have what it takes!”, can and needs to be channelled to good causes. There are many battles to be fought, much evil to overcome, dragons to be slain, even in modern society. We need those boys to come through for us! Society needs to address the fatherhood void in clever ways.

Which is what What About the Boys? is all about.