Men – The Endangered Species

For some strange reason, I can’t pronounce the word endangered on first try. Even when I eventually do, I say it in a weird way. Some people might interpret this to mean that I have a strong point. I agree with this particular reasoning. I think that the difficulty of pronouncing this word exposes the sheer danger that we as men have to live under. If you ask me, I think it is a miracle that men have not become extinct yet. I guess we have more resilience than we are given credit for.

Seriously Stereotyped

“All men are dogs!” says many a women at the back end of a broken relationship. Whereas you can hear of different types of women ranging from composed to outgoing, it is not so for men. Men are all lumped into one group irrespective of all our obvious and distinct individual differences. A man making a mistake does so on behalf of all men but a woman errs as an individual.

Unreasonable Expectations

A man is expected to have a good job or a business by his mid-twenties. He is then expected to marry and have children by the time he hits thirty, failure to which he will be branded a selfish brat who wants to ‘eat’ all that money alone. All these achievements are expected of men and yet they have to go through childhood and youth with almost no guidance from their parents and society. They literally have to bring themselves up.

Different Measure of Success from Women

From academic grades to sports cut-off points, men have to attain more to get the same opportunities as women. They have to make more money so as to cater for their often extended responsibilities to their families and society in general. This is often in total disregard to their own personal needs and desires.

Pent-Up Feelings

Society expects men to be strong on behalf of everybody else. It is for this reason that men who display any negative emotions are frowned upon. This has led to many men learning to keep a brave face in all situations including those where they are seriously worried on how to come out of. Statistics have shown that men are more suicidal than women due to inability to release pent-up feelings of anger and depression.

Population Myths

Contrary to popular belief, the population of men is roughly equal to that of women. It has always been assumed that there are more women than men leading to the impression that men are more empowered. Some opportunities may have been availed to women based on this myth further disadvantaging men.

Scary Look into the Future

I recently read somewhere that the continuing evolution of humans will endow women with the ability to reproduce asexually. For the Laymen, reproducing asexually means that an organism contains all the ‘equipment’ it needs to reproduce, internally. This takes away the need to need to mate and consequently, the gender that traditionally mates is rendered redundant. If (or when) this happens, it will only be a matter of time before the ‘useless’ gender vanishes from the face of the earth because nature has no apologies to make for exterminating ‘joyriders’.

Fighting for the Boy Child

I know I have lost a lot of you (particularly ladies and Christians) along the words above. However, let this not be construed to mean that I am fighting women. I am only saying that some effort has to be put in fighting for the boy child. It is true that women have always been disadvantaged and continue to be so. Affirmative action and advocating the rights of the girl child have achieved a lot in improving the lives of women and affording them opportunities that would hitherto have been considered impossible dreams. It is also true that a lot remains to be done in bringing women to be at par with men. My worry is that if the boy child is not considered alongside the girl, he will slide far back and it will be a case of reversed roles when he has to be brought back up. Let us not allow it to reach that point. Let’s all fight against the endangerment of the male species.