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Men’s Matters
The Role of Men in the Family
TTIPS in conversation with Michael Als, Toco Foundation
At a staff retreat in 2004 TTIPS directors,
Marina Torres and Barbara King, invited Michael Als of the Toco
Foundation to discuss strategies for empowering fathers in Trinidad
and Tobago.
The Context:
A lot of organizations are women-focused, not
because we don’t want to engage men, but we seem not to know how to
do it. What we are intending to do is to get a better idea of
what’s happening in the environment in terms of parenting. We want
to specifically focus on the role of men, what are their needs.
What are the issues out there from a man’s point of view? We have
come to the conclusion that any work to empower fathers needs to be
done by men. Rather than having women telling men how they should be
fathers, we would like to create a group of fathers who could
decided what are the needs of the moment and strategize how best to
address those needs.
Michael
Twenty-five years ago, the male was the
dominant figure in the family, he’s not that now. The dominant
figure in the family is the female, the mother, the children, and
then the father. To my mind it is so because of how society has
evolved, how the information order is developing and how roles are
not only changing, but have changed.
We are completely running against a current
which tends to bring to the fore a social element that is now
accepting that man is not the real leader
TTIPS: So you’re saying that man himself is
accepting that he is not to lead? Is it not just that the female are
taking the lead?
Michael:
We must understand
the psychosis and what is taking place. A survey was taken in
Germany recently where 51% of the women said, “I prefer to live
single.” That’s a phenomenon in Europe. “I prefer not to be married,
yes I prefer to have a man, I prefer to have a child, but I don’t
wish to be controlled by a male figure”.
Those are
phenomenal leaps in order and structure of society and I don’t think
we would be able, in the next hundred years, to alter that. In fact
I’m convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the lead element in the
families will be mothers, followed by children and then men. It may
sound strange, but when we examine the shifts in societal make-up
you will be having a defective plan if you are trying to give men
this power that they no longer have. They don’t want the
responsibility of leading the family, because it’s not a family lead
by order any longer. The personality of the woman now has to be
engaged bt the entire society which is currently
male dominated but female influenced.
When you examine violence, as an example, it is
because what have completely collapsed are the
roles where a man could tell a woman, “you’re not going there”, and
she would not go. Today he says that and the woman would say, “Are
you speaking to me?” and she would go where she wants to go. In
response the man may hit the woman or he may leave her for someone
else and probably encounter something even worse.
In response, some men pull back and some of
them strike out in different forms. Today even in the work place
there is no guarantee if you are a man, you’ll be the boss. The
fact is that some women are more educated than men and own cars.
They are not dependent on the male figure to take them somewhere.
This is not happening in Trinidad alone but is this happening
worldwide. So, if you are attempting to get men to assume roles that
they had before I would say you are wasting your time, it is a
strategy that is sure to fail.
TTIPS: You mentioned that men are not ready
to take leadership of other men - is there an element of fear?
Of course. Men have retreated and they are
going further and further back. The order has shifted
fundamentally. So why are you trying to drag men through that
forest, to bring them back to a point they have retreated from?
You’re wasting your time.
TTIPS: So you’re saying that women are
liberated, children are being liberated, and men are retreating?
Men have retreated. What I’m saying is that
this is a phenomenon. I’m telling you half of the people in our
elected parliament in the next five to ten years are going to be women.
Without a question and there will be no debate about who will be the
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, it is going to be female and
the dominant ministers are going to be female.
Even owners of capital - everybody now knows
what stocks and shares are, women have more knowledge of economics
and finances than men. It is the female who manages the family,
manages the finances, the man is ‘law and order’ and the woman is
the government. We have to face the reality that men have gone back
and they have not gone back to where women were, because the women
were always pushing, men have retreated.
The other thing is concerning money, resources
used to be a male thing, property used to be a male thing, leaving a
will was a male thing, but now the property relationship has
shifted, the family relationships have been moniterized. It has
become universal in the family about how resources are to be used.
The main thing in the family now is money. Some
people say its love and affection. Money is now, and more than ever
before, determining the relationships in the family. The issue of
money now flavours the balance of the heart.
When we look at the development in society over
the last 25 years, the shifts have been so dramatic it is like
science. For example, the computer has altered all human relations
forever. There is homosexual relationship where there are a whole
range of men finding comfort with one another and it is a part of
the retreat, part of the comfort that they have with one another in
the contextual framework of what is now dominant - the female and
the young males and females in the family.
You said the men don’t want to struggle and
their alternative is to retreat, but given that they don’t want the
struggle and the responsibility; Do you think if we try to make it a
partnership it would make them feel included?
It’s the only way it will work, to make them
feel comfortable and give them the power but you cannot give them
that power on a platter because they will become incestuous and they
will not grow, they will not develop. Sharing means taking up your
responsibilities. Men need to know this.
What worries me is I’m getting a picture of
somebody who is diminishing and almost disappearing, what goes on
inside of their heads?
That’s your professional pre-occupation and I
could identify with that because that’s your training. It’s
important because ultimately, it affects their actions and someone
who is afraid of disappearing and ceasing to exist is going to at
some point begin to fight to struggle.
They don’t have the need to fight (like women
did) because women were oppressed, suppressed, down pressed,
controlled. The men don’t mind because if you take over that role.
Men are not fighting the retreat. It takes a lot of the
responsibility from him.
They have been carrying a weight all this time
and they have been frustrated and stressed and all the things that
go with it, and they’re saying “Well you want to try it? Go ahead!”
Since women are such good organizers, men leave things to them.
But what is happening to the man who is feeling
squeezed?
He wants to regain control. You know what the
violence is about. He doesn’t have control any longer. So he’s
finishing off with it. That’s where the violence comes in. It
perhaps needs more scientific analysis.
So the what some males are feeling is
powerlessness and of not being in control?
The point I’m making is that when you look at
the violence and you understand the history, it is men who don’t
accept these new phenomena and who don’t understand it and can’t
understand it, and the only way for him to get back that power is to
demonstrate his need.
What is happening to the young men in response
to that?
I am making two points the phenomenon continues
in terms of the dominance by the female and the retreating of the
male and the young male are retreating also. Parents pay more
attention to their girl children now. They leave the boys to do
their own thing. This is not good.
What do you see male teachers doing in the
system?
The male teachers I see now, their response is
not different to what Michael is talking about. They have the issue
to deal with so they have retreated too.
We notice when we go to schools where the
teacher groups all the boys together, you may have two or three
girls and the majority of the class is boys and this is the trouble
class.
So is it that the educational system has
contributed to this retreat of men?
I think it is unfair to say that the school
system contributed, it is a universal phenomenon that is taking
place of which the police service, civil service, the education
system, all have contributed to where we have arrived or are
arriving. No one element has influenced this.
Can we really say that the way women are, the
way women behave is alienating men?
I would say yes, but can they behave any other
way? They don’t sit down, like the men do and say” the children is
not going any where.” They would say “I want my child to go
somewhere”. So they leave the men and they go do what they have to
do. These men only want to claim their children when they are grown
up.
Is that because previously men automatically got
the better jobs any way? There were more jobs available for men?
Back then the jobs that were available would
have been low skilled sometimes and men would have actually gotten
these jobs without trying, they wouldn’t really put the effort but
they would have got the job.
We even tell the children in the school that
they can no longer look at construction as a way out, because you’re
sure if you want to be a carpenter, or mason or a plumber, that’s a
male dominated thing, but it’s no longer like that because you have
females being learning these traditional skills.
That phenomenon of retreat and withdrawal is not
something I feel you can, at this point in time, address. What you
have to deal with is the few men that come in the (parent education
) system and you try to hold them so that later on they can be part
of something.
Because you’re dealing with a phenomenon where
40% of the population is in retreat and that retreat of the 40%
happens to be gender based. And the society therefore, is going to
be led by females whether we like it or not. In the next 5 or 10
years in every sphere of life and it’s going to be a better society
and I’m confident about that. That is the revelation.
How can you keep them motivated?
The select groups you have to work extra hard to
keep them, you have to exercise enormous patience both with the
males and females, but more with the males, because it’s a social
current that is flowing that you cannot contain or influence.
Do you separate the men because they will
quickly retreat even faster? You have to go at their level. Don’t
think that these men who must come in to TTIPS must be those who are
assertive, well educated, aware, willing to work long hours, give
them the smallest liabilities and responsibilities so that they can
excel in those little things and then blow it up. Don’t bring them
in at your level, they will because you all are a volcano, doing
things and getting things done, high energy. Men don’t want to do
that with their lives. You have to give them some responsibility as
small as it maybe until they have the capacity to handle bigger
things.
Based on your experience working with young
boys, do you find they are not receptive to opportunity?
I would say yes, the opportunity is there, to
learn a skill, to do something; the opportunity to excel is always
there.
The more exposure you get when it comes to
education, the males that normally would have been there with you,
they keep dropping off. They keep sort of by themselves because
they are now up against a different entity.
It will be highly selective, those males that
you target, who you can work with you work with them.
But what concerns me is what I hear the women
saying about men and the attitudes that women are developing about
these males and I find it scary.
What makes it scary Barbara?
Because its disrespectful, its scorn and just as
you say that the men are pathetic and all of these things and men
are seeking sex with men, women are choosing not to be with men.
It’s the
phenomenon of their life because the whole HIV and sexually
transmitted diseases have to do with men going with other men and
then going by the females and women know that.
And they have a
right to have contempt because it is a part of the social phenomenon
of the reality.
But you know there
are women out there who are saying they don’t want a liability if he
can’t be an asset.
Going back to
where you said that men don’t want the struggle and so they
withdraw, is it then that there are men who want the partnership and
want you, the woman, to encourage them to be a part of what is
happening, because sometimes, I don’t know if it’s a subconscious
thing but we tend to exclude the men.
I firmly believe
that everyone has to find their essence and then begin to share it,
and sometimes it takes a lifetime to know, this is where I’m
supposed to be, this is what I’m about.
Under-development
dwarfs the human mind, personality, consciousness, everything. When
I look at people who don’t have a decent health centres, schools,
roads, opportunities, it affects their lives.
Your organization
may be small, you may be still struggling, but the issue you are
involved in is trying to reform the society, to change people’s
lives. People must respect that. |
