Sample Written Story: Tapiwa
My father used to beat my mother and call her names. He used culture as an excuse to deny her, and to deny us our rights to peace. He would say, “Women and children should respect the head of this family, and no one can rule besides me in this house. It’s my culture.” I had to ask myself what kind of culture that could be. I was young, I couldn’t do anything, but I wanted to fight him back.
When I was bigger, I went to a boarding school. I used to worry about my mom when I was away. I wondered what my dad was doing to her and what would happen if I went home for the holidays. I couldn’t concentrate, with all the wondering.
Tapiwa (far left) at boarding school
I joined a gender and HIV/AIDS club that had more girl members than boys. I learned the many misconceptions my schoolmates had about gender. For the boys, gender was about women’s issues; it had nothing to do with being a man. This disturbed me, because I knew from my own life how gender-based violence affects both women and men.
In my work today, my colleagues and I challenge young men’s ideas about what a man should be like. When they say, “Men should take risks, because that’s what being a man is about,” we point out that certain kinds of risks are not about being brave, they are about getting HIV. As a man, I want to change the thinking of other men and young boys about the roles they play in life as husbands, fathers, and members of communities. I have vowed not to use violence in my life.
A few years ago, I was sitting with my dad in the garden, and we started talking about a domestic violence murder that had happened recently. Right away, he brought up the times he had been violent. He apologized for what he had done to us and to my mom. I could see that he is a different person than he was. He respects my mother and us as his children. My father’s story tells me that our strength as men doesn’t have to be for hurting. Instead, it can be for finding the courage to change.
- Tapiwa works with the Padare Men’s Forum on Gender, in Zimbabwe