Men are actually SCUM!
Rant 001- This is my personal opinion!
‘Do you know what it means to be horny? Nne, do you really know what it means to be hard? You will be under pressure, it is as though the world is about to collapse.’ These were the words of some Men we were talking to about Rape! I silently prayed… May that world collapse on them and the pipe wire in between those pole-like legs that carries those empty brains! Imagine their thoughts. Didn’t the bible say if a part of your body would make you Sin, cut it off? Cut the damn thing off and stop making women feel like endangered aliens in their community.
I am going to write this piece with all sense of humility, clarity and simplicity. It’s important you know where i’m coming from, and i’m open to the varying criticism from my fellow scum, especially the high-handed ones who try to spew vilifying thoughts about those who stand against their self righteous ‘scumry’! Guess what? We are all SCUMS and you are just a righteous breed of this Scum Community! Married Scums, Intelligent Scums, Repented Scums, Unexposed Scums, Hypocritical Scums, Religious Scums, Defensive Scums, Silent Scums.. Pick your hustle and let’s face it head on.
It is only my closest friends who will know i never had it in mind to start any NGO. I founded Boys Quarters Africa in December 2018 and ever since, i have committed my resources in contributing my quota toward ending the menace of this glaring ‘Manhood’ crisis and maybe create a desirable future for our daughters. I have personally funded the mobilization of several volunteers who travel across Africa, talking to Boys, gathering data and we’ve gone as far as reaching out to Boys at correctional homes. This is where my mouth is and I've been putting in my resources.
For the past 18 Months, we’ve directly spoken to 5,517 (One on One) Boys across Africa and our founding principle is wrapped around the thoughts that, even if we can’t fix Men, we can build Boys. I admit i am wrong! These Men are the reasons these Boys would remain ‘unbuildable’. Toxic set of individuals whose only intelligence is the wire between their legs. I have never met a Gender who never takes responsibility like Men. I know by now you may be wondering what the issue is about. Please, follow my thoughts.
At the beginning of the year, my team had a plan around executing a project that speaks to engaging Boys on Sexual and Domestic Violence, but we’ve been constrained by several things. But in the wake of the recent rape crisis across Nigeria, i told my team we need to take this message out of instagram feeds and twitter timelines. I told them we need a grass root sensitization awareness and we need to do it quickly. We swung into action and we wrote WARIF and the Lagos Domestic & Sexual Violence Response Team for partnership, and within 4 days, we sealed a partnership! The Head of Operations (Glory- a lady) led the team in rigorous back to back project planning meetings and i was scared at the way they drove themselves. By the way, Boys Quarters Africa is a women-led organization. The Chairman of our Board of Trustees, another Board Member, Head of Operations, Head of Finance, Head of Communication, Head of Community Engagement are all women! Amazing Women!
Back to the project!
We christened the Project and we arrived at the word SABI! We needed a word the pepper seller in Agege, the bricklayer in Okokomaiko, the Taxi Driver in Akure, the spare part seller in Onitsha or the Tigernuts seller in Minna would understand. In Nigeria, SABI means to KNOW. The overarching idea is to take the knowledge around social media to the homes of these folks who may not have access to these information. Big Thanks to Praise Philemon & Team who did the magic of curating all our creatives for FREE!
I told my team, if we are truly tired, we must set out to the grass root and engage Men & Boys in this critical conversation. However, the team suggested we make the conversation robust. Hence, engaging Women and Girls, whilst we are busy talking toBoys & Men. Nothing prepared me for the horrible experience we had that day.
We chose Agege Local Government for the maiden community action and our Head of Programs had done all the community survey before hand. But he missed out the survey on street boys who way-laid us for money and threatened to break the cameras of the innocent guys who came as volunteers. Anyways, that’s not even the crux of the conversation. We had volunteers on the roll, 11 ladies and 4 Guys, and nothing can be more awe-inspiring than seeing these ladies defy the rain and get into the locality where we had earmarked for the session.
We broke the team into two squads- Team Men/Boys & Team Women/Girls. I led the Team Men/Boys and i wasn’t even prepared for the stupefying words that oozed out of the mouth of MEN! Human Men! Living beings! One of the volunteers walked up to me and said, a guy was harassing her and that he went as far as asking if she wasn’t wearing a bra. Oh God of heaven! While i was still trying to find out who the HeDiot was, another offspring of Adam kept ranting; ‘Why una go carry fine fine girls come dey talk about rape?’. I took a deep breathe, i walked to the car and told my elder brother who had stopped by to say hi to the team that ‘We have a major problem. We have a National crisis. We have a major challenge’
I personally spoke to over 20 Men about the Rape culture and how they can end this menace. ALL of them pushed the blame on Women and Girls. I was tired of hearing ‘Tell those girls to dress properly TOO’- I heard this irresponsible statement from grown men who have daughters, young guys who aren’t married and or course women too! None of these Men said, we must hold ourselves accountable and teach ourselves the essence of self control. I was ashamed! I saw how some threw unnecessary jab at my girls. Oh i forgot to mention the guy who was screaming at the top of his voice that ‘Una no talk as we go take marry these fine fine girls wey una carry come’.
The anger on twitter street is valid! A guy looked into my eye and said, ‘If i wan knack am and we don commot cloth, there’s no going back again’. I held myself back from insulting these folks. I knew our goal was to teach and i didn’t want my emotions to cloud my judgment. What sort of masculinity pushes all the blame on Women and Girls? What sort of masculinity never sees areas where they should improve on? What sort of masculinity never sees self control as the solution to violence? I have never seen such an inane social construct.
Men, we need to call ourselves together and speak in the language we collectively understand. I’ve recently been thinking about curating a virtual boot camp for young men between the ages 16–25, because i’m scared that this ‘Scum thing’ is in different phases. I mean, the intellectual Scums like me who arm-twist our girl friends and wives into submitting to our ‘superior’ opinions. Never accepting we are wrong, covering our high-handedness with grammars, our bad behaviors with gifts, our failings with romantic messages. I may just write a sequel to this!
You can never understand injustice until you walk in the shoes of those who are experiencing it. As a guy, have you ever walked down a street and a lady screams at your bulging phallus? This and many more are what Women and girls go through.
Forget all the terminologies — Patriarchy, Misogyny, Toxic Masculinity and likes. There’s a fundamental problem with Men & this is not to say we don’t have good men out there. However, if you are that good man out there, you aren’t doing the world a favor. You are normal!
Solomon O. Ayodele writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He is the Founder & Lead Execution Officer of Boys Quarters Africa.