Men Are Not Passive Followers of Women
- Category: Gender
- Date 18-06-2006
- 454 views
Dr C. Sanga of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare recently made a disturbing revelation! While officiating at a workshop in Dar es Salaam, attended by Mainland regional administrative secretaries, he said that of all the married women in Tanzania, an average of seventy-four percent (74%) do not use any form of contraception. As if to level blame on our usual scapegoats, he pointed out that because of their failure to utilise pills, women are responsible for the uncontrolled population explosion facing the country!
Dr Sanga’s research showed the following: only forty-six percent (46%) of delivering mothers receive assistance from professional health workers, while the rest give birth at home attended either by relatives or traditional birth attendants; maternal mortality rate is increasing, with 578 deaths per 100,000 live births as at 2004. That most women in rural areas never go to hospital because of poverty.
Why did the research bring women into the spotlight, utterly disregarding men, who in reality must bear the biggest blame if ever a country faces a population bumper? Dr. Sanga would do good to have offered similar statistics on men’s behaviour and its impact on the population growth of Bongo land.
Peering Eye has noted before that it is a man’s sperm that metamorphoses into an embryo inside a mother’s womb to become a child – this is a truth more understood by Dr. Sanga and ilk. None of our bongo ladies is said to have conceived by artificial insemination, since we neither understand nor possess the necessary technical wealth to execute such a project.
It is unfortunate that to determine a people’s population growth rate, we always calculate the number of children per mother not per father. How amazing if children or pregnancies per man were the yardstick by which population growth as well as mortality were measured!
Our research often focuses on percentages of women who use contraceptives to deter possible conceptions, and we desperately shudder on realising that a vast majority never take adequate precautions to stop pregnancies! What we forget however is the greater integer of men who keep aiming and shooting live ammunition at both fertile and infertile women’s ovaries, causing all the pregnancies.
Yes! No woman in Bongo conceives without a man. For every single pregnancy, a certain man has acted a hundredfold without any preventative measures. It is time to find out how many men ever apply a condom to stop pregnancies – they are more inclined to do if only to protect themselves from sexual infections.
I mean, reports by the Dr. Sangas of this world are always devoid of important ingredients. They are biased against women as though they are the sole basis for irresponsible conceptions and subsequent childbirths. Research reports incessantly ignore the part played by male species in the proliferation of national populations as though it is solely a woman’s duty to be so careful should her male partner act irresponsibly. Such stereotyping!
Centring all attention on the propensity of women to apply contraception to stop pregnancies is not to honour men; rather it is to portray them as careless dimwits, without capacity to anticipate the dangers that come with impromptu childbirths. Yet, they have a responsibility to think twice before engaging in sexual activity – to predict the outcomes and come up with suitable answers to the emerging problems.
Peering Eye is only perturbed about the apparent imposition of blame on gullible females to emphasise the melancholy that accompanies spontaneous population growths. In all fairness, it is not the mere blame game that matters; the apportioning of fault and shame, but responsibility must be shared between man and woman.
All studies should necessarily take into account men’s direct input in bringing about the population bang. Considerable culpability lies on the men’s heads, they ought to be conscious that their partner might conceive if sexual pastime is undertaken without caution. Yes, we men are not passive onlookers – we make things happen!
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen