How societal expectations and self-neglect are shortening men’s lives

What you need to know:

• They are taught to provide, protect and persevere, but never to rest, ask for help or care for themselves.

Recent social media posts reveal remarkable sensitivity to men’s plight. For example, a woman observed on Facebook that she has never heard of a woman who left behind a will and wondered whether it is men’s responsibility to die earlier. 

Meanwhile, the ‘Zara Speaks’ podcast berated men for neglecting themselves, to their own detriment. It noted that “most men die before their wives,” not because it is natural but because of self-neglect and societal indifference.

“A man dies early because he becomes a provider, protector, problem solver.” In the process, “he stops being a human being.” Instead, “he carries pressure silently… stress like it is normal… fear like it is responsibility.” He “sleeps late, wakes up early, works like a slave and keeps telling himself, ‘I am fine.’ But deep inside, he is breaking.” The podcast claims that “men are constantly in survival mode.”

The tragedy is that “when a man is stressed, nobody asks him how he is doing,” but whether he has solved the problem. “Men are loved for what they can provide. So, a man keeps pushing until his body collapses.” His death is then attributed to “God’s time,” yet it was really “years of carrying the world on his head.” In sum, men “are taught to be strong but never taught to be healthy… to provide but not… to rest… to protect everyone but nobody protects them.” They act as if they are invincible.

Commenting on this, the person who posted the Zara clip on a WhatsApp wall explained that he has attended a number of funerals of men where “they will describe a generous giver, caring person, a problem solver, organiser, a mediator and arbiter, a total man.” In fact, “the loss will sound immense and many will conclude that ‘we do not know how we will cope without him.’ You hardly ever hear of a fun-loving humour prankster, one who cared for himself and took care of his environment and surroundings. It’s always about other people.” He ends by asking: “Are we constantly seeking validation to make us feel Jogoo (cockish)?”

These observations point to strands of masculinity beyond those already theorised by different scholars. The omnipotent-messiah masculinity describes men who act as if they owe the world a living. They try to solve everyone’s problems; doing everything, but end up exhausting themselves, blind and unable to cater for their own needs. They stretch themselves beyond their limits and end up breaking themselves physically, emotionally, financially and in other ways. They retire in personal poverty while the beneficiaries of their actions move on to other hosts.

The immortal masculinity defines men who behave as if they will last forever. Because they do not acknowledge that their abilities inevitably decline with age, they assert themselves in doing unrealistic things. These include taking up extreme physical exercises and age-masking initiatives, competing for attention with the younger generation, and ingesting aphrodisiacs to sustain fading sexual vigour, where that applies. The daredevil masculinity concerns men who expose themselves to every risk available. As in immortal masculinity, the driving force is not only a false belief in agelessness but also a sense of invincibility that nothing can harm them.

The omniscient masculinity captures those who believe that they know everything, from nuclear physics to politics. If you can’t listen to them, you leave their company. Then there is the Don Juan masculinity, whose sole satisfaction lies in the number of women with whom he has had sexual encounters.

The indispensable community-builder masculinity refers to the types with boundless energy. They are in every possible committee you can think of: church, neighbourhood welfare, security, staff, professional association, trade union, elders—all in the name of ‘giving back’. They do not decline any invitation to leadership and always start the next community initiative, never learning from failed ones. They are always jumping from one meeting to another and travelling perpetually, in the process denying themselves and their families time and attention. They see their habitual lateness not as a mark of infamy but as one of sophistication, importance and achievement. The driving force is the desire to be appreciated, recognised and, hopefully, to get a ‘befitting send-off’.

Then there is the financial donor masculinity. This defines men who dispense their money as if they are harvesting it from the Garden of Eden. They are the “our thief” type, even though their beneficiaries very well know that the sources of their finances are questionable. These men do not realise that wealth is finite and temporal.

The social media posts are reminding men, in all these categories, that when death knocks, the world does not stop. It observes a minute’s silence, appoints replacements, and life continues.

The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected])