"Men are good" is a men's movement tagline designer Robert Young delights in making other men say out loud. I'm one of a generation of AfroCaribbean men raised by single mothers on a diet of men are good for nothing. (Black ones at least.) Masculinity is delicious in bed, I hope we can all agree. But is it good for anything else? Apart from being sometimes delicious, are men good?
Talk in the talkshops is Caribbean masculinity is in crisis. This "crisis" was one of four key things the national gender policy–sent to die in Cabinet committee–was to address.
Religious mobilisation to kill the policy, fuelled by fear it would give people control over their own bodies (making love at home might no longer get you fired at work or sent to jail; and poor women could have the access to safe abortions well-off women enjoy) also sacrificed its other measures to address the large percentage of young males involved in violent and criminal activity, males' significantly poorer school performance than females, and men's high rates of health problems like substance abuse, mental distress and chronic "lifestyle" diseases.
I never understood why men who do see masculinity as in crisis never campaigned for it.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members