Men are not trash

On April 28, Karabo Mokoena a 22-year-old woman was reported missing in Johannesburg, South Africa.  At the beginning of this week, after weeks of her family and friends trying to find her, news emerged that she was found brutally murdered and burnt to ashes by her boyfriend, Sandile Mantsoe.

These news have sparked an online movement where women are pouring their hearts out on the bad things that men have done to them under the hash tag, #MenAreTrash. Actually, this movement has always been there in the online sphere but this incident sparked the current wave that women are riding on.

Now, I am against violence of any kind whether directed to or coming from a woman. I also know that men with violent tendencies begin by getting into the heads of their victims so I will not ask why she didn’t see the signs or why she didn’t leave earlier.

What happened to her is very heart-wrenching and I can’t even imagine what her loved ones must be feeling towards her attacker. Most of the stories that women shared about the things that happened to them at the hands of men are as shocking as they are painful to read.

 Still, I will not get onto the ‘Men Are Trash’ train. I will not try to pretend that all men are good and gentle souls.  A man who kills a woman who trusted him with her life and then burns her body can be classified as trash. There are also a lot of unflattering names that I can think of for men who hit, harass, exclude and talk over women.

FULFILLED PROPHESY

That said, I think that lumping men together and labelling them trash is hurting us more than its helping. I mean, aren’t you afraid for your sons? Aren’t you afraid that if our little boys grow up hearing such, then the next generation will be a case of a fulfilled prophesy? Aren’t you afraid that the next generation of men, or even this one, will in protest or in defeat actually become trash?

I have heard the argument that men should just get over it because women have been called names and been on the receiving end of injustices for ages. I think this train of thought is retrogressive. We will not stop violence against women by meting out the same on the men around us.

We have many reasons to become angry today. To get out of this rut, however, I think we need to do something more than throw a blanket label over anything that is male in protest. We need to do something that will inspire men to be better.

We can start by having discussions that include the men around us on the safety of women and by raising our boys right so that some of these problems end with this generation.