It’s late on Friday night, and I am sitting in the dark with a group of Ugandan men. There’s a lot of talking, a lot of laughing, and a lot of food. I will have three exhausting days and nights of this before I return to my sight, ready to teach at my all girls’ school. What on earth am I doing? Has the malaria medication finally gotten to my brain? Have I broken down, unable to take the isolation of living in a convent? Not at all; I am working with the Kazo Parish’s Catholic Men’s Associations.
Ok, now, quick quiz: Answer each of the following with either “men” or “women:”
Which group has a shorter average lifespan in Uganda and all around the world? Men. Who is more likely to commit suicide, be killed, die in a motor accident, or be involved in risky sexual behavior? Men. Who is less likely to seek health information or to be involved in positive community groups? Men. Men in Uganda and all around the world are not only at risk for numerous health problems but seem to be critically ignored by many organizations, including the Peace Corps. They, however, are leaders in our communities and in this nation. They are the ones who make decisions regarding money, reproductive health, and social structures in families and in communities.
In training, we were repeatedly taught that men in Uganda were simply bad. We women were taught to wear long skirts and to avoid men. For the first few months at site, I did this. I taught life skills at my girls’ only school, lived in my convent with nuns, and tried to avoid men. I realized, however, that I could not teach life skills to the girls at my school when their fathers were waiting to sell them for cows when they came home. I could not just ignore men in my school when the president of our PTA had over ten wives, at least one taken from our school, and some teachers were caught sleeping with the girls. I wondered, what is happening to Ugandan men to make them act this way? I read some statistics in our Uganda Statistics book and learned that more boys under the age of 12 reported experiencing sexual abuse than girls in that age bracket. I also see that many boys are subject to harsh physical punishment and have few people teaching them about the meaning of manhood.
When one of the sisters I work with decided to start men’s groups in different parish villages, therefore, I was excited. I then asked Jolie for resources and she sent me a training manual for working with men in relation to gender and HIV.
We now conduct weekend seminars in different villages where groups of men have agreed to host us. We begin by asking what the meaning of a man is; we analyze the social construction of gender with these men to discover helpful and harmful gender behaviors. We then move on to topics such as HIV and domestic violence. The men, so far, have been very appreciative and helpful; they have also invited us back. This means a lot because we do not provide them with transport or accommodations—in fact, they have to provide those things for us.
My father lived and worked in the Middle East in predominantly male centered societies for nearly fifteen years. I remember talking with him about relationships between men and their wives in such communities. He would tell me that men do not marry four wives and beat their wives, etc, because they hated women or because they were trying to be cruel. He simply said that many of them did not know how to have healthy relationships and to communication with their wives. He said that many men asked him for advice on such matters and wanted to have genuine loving relationships at home.
Following one particularly lively session regarding domestic violence, Sister Margaret and I overheard several couples talking afterward. Men were surprised that their wives cared about how much they ate at home and their attitudes during meals. Women were surprised that their husbands felt bad when they did not speak to them before meals. Both sides had simply never talked about it before.
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