A Happy Father's to very few men out there

In many black communities (and I'm sure many black folks will agree) there should be very few men honoured on this father's day. It has become culture of a lot of the working class men in their late 50s or early 60s to get their pension funds, abandon their families and go spend their money with floozies. My dad is 64-years-old and hasn't done it(yet). Lucky for me I have already gone through school and I am employed. And so if he does find a floozy to go spend his pension fund with, I (along with my siblings) will be able to take care of mama. 


But it is a different story for many other people out there. These men, never divorce their wives for some odd reason. And when the money is drained from their bank accounts, it suddenly dawns on them that they have families the left behind. Believe me, this is a trend in the black communities. African tradition sometimes dis-empowers women. Simply because they are supposed to welcome these evil people back into their lives. When they die, women are expected to "mourn" these irresponsible men. "Mourning" these men involves wearing a black robe for certain amount of time (usually a year) and to never have relations with any other man till the mourning period is over. Many men in our communities are burdens to their families because they made bad choices. 


I am not in any way stereotyping black men. But I am giving testimony of what I have seen, endured in my short life so far. Even with regard to HIV issues, the men are the fast "transporters" of this virus. It is an unspoken truth that our women do not have control over their reproductive health. Making them vulnerable to HIV and other "crimes" perpetrated by men. 

I agree that we must be cautious in reducing all men and all women to stereotypes – men as “perpetrators” with an aggressive and “promiscuous” sexuality and women as “victims”, sexually and socially passive. Tamara Shefer has critiqued some early gender-focussed HIV/AIDS responses, saying that the initial focus on women and girls resulted in an inadvertent “blaming” of women for the epidemic, reproduced traditional roles and patronised women. She argued that by viewing masculinity and femininity as opposites and “naturally” different, we have tried naively to “empower” women and improve “communication” in relationships, rather than addressing the structural inequalities and power differential between men and women. In addition, not enough gender work with women acknowledged the role of class, race and other identities and ignored positive aspects of female sexuality, such as pleasure and desire.

And so I would k=like to wish a happy father's day to very few men out there.