It’s confusing being a man in Botswana today. In newspapers, it is the feminist who are deciding what is news: gender inequality, gender violence, gender this and that. Men who find themselves abused or bullied by their partners never make it to the newspaper pages. It is taboo for Batswana men to discuss the problems they face. It’s all become a bit like the film Fight Club ÔÇô the first rule of being a man in Botswana is that you’re not allowed to talk about it.
Even in the bedroom Botswana is facing a crisis of masculinity. This is hardly surprising. Forget the internet, face book and twitter. The biggest change in Botswana’s social culture in the last two generations happened in the bedroom, from cuckold culture to passion killing.
The Botswana male gender identity crisis was highlighted by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Ikwatlhaeng Bagopi told stakeholders and members of the press members of the press in preparation for the inauguration of the International Men’s Day at Tlotlo conference centre.
While almost every Motswana of the internet generation knows of at least one chilling passion killing story, Bagopi explained that in the past, “it was custom, if not law that when a trip to the cattle post or anywhere bounced, old men sent message to their homes to inform wives and children that it bounced. This was to ensure that everything that would temper with the old men’s peace was cleared. Batswana from the past generation assumed that a woman left home for a moment will immediately summon a lover to replace her husband and they learnt to live with it.
Virtually every Motswana husband could be cuckold irrespective of class or social standing. Even chiefs were not immune to being cuckold. Cuckold historically referred to a husband with an adulterous wife and is still often used with this meaning. In evolutionary biology, the term cuckold is also applied to males who are unwittingly investing parental effort in offspring that are not genetically their own. The country’s current chieftainship succession disputes and family inheritance feud provides a peep show into how spread cuckolding was in Botswana.
About a generation later, the thought of another man parking his shoes under your bed is enough to turn many boyfriends and husbands into murderers. For some time now, passion killings have occupied more column centre meters on local newspapers than any subject besides HIV/AIDS and maybe gender violence.
Bagopi advised men who attended the stakeholders meeting that“Ha o re o ya morakeng mosepele o bo o pala o bo sa ise molaetsa o tla fitlhela monna yo mongwe. Go tswa foo kamoso re tsile go fitlhela o akgega mo setlhareng ka fa… [When your planned trip to the cattle-post flops, you should inform your partner before going home because she may have invited his lover and next thing we will find you hanging from a tree having committed suicide.
