The fault in our men.

African men love to see that a woman needs them. They don't understand the appeal of a woman who wants you but don't need you. This is a fault.


A fault in our societal norms and collective perceptions of the dictates of manhood and womanhood. This fault results in the widely embraced dichotomy in the upbringing of boys and girls.


The every day African man is like his environment, a walking contradiction. Interview most of them and they prefer the smart, charming and intellectually inclined woman over the cliché.


The cliche is the woman who is said to be 'behind every (successful) man'. She is not busy chasing success in her own field, besides clothes, beauty accessories and gossip her field is whatever the man wants. This cliché woman is a basic female, who classifies the reproduction and companionship driven romantic feat of matrimony as a destiny, an achievement.  In practice,  only few men stay with the liberated and intellectually inclined woman. It's simple.


This is because our skewed society brings man up with a faulty mindset. The mindset that the only thing worth minding in life is the business of providing. Make money and everything in the world must bow to you. Hence, once a man is successful, he crowns it with the 'woman BEHIND him'.


You see, every other vagary of life demands and deserves the African man's attention and respect but not his woman.In practice, he hopes the woman will shiver when he roars, cower when he frowns.


His mother, father and sisters, even his friends tell him he must be in charge. No one defines or attempts to define 'in charge'.


He loves the idea of an equal partner, the one who leaves for work in the morning and come back in the evening tired as him but, he keeps the woman who did not have 'a day' and therefore when he comes home frowning or irritable, he becomes her day. He wants his woman to be a 'house wife'. He doesn't want her 'talking to other men' (most men only were forced to let their wives pursue a career or do business by economic and financial downtown).


Intellectual women are hard to live with he concludes. They know their rights because of this he claims they 'know too much'. When he has a hectic day and she has an even more hectic one and he almost seems inconsiderate asking her to serve him, it makes him feel 'less of a man'.


When he frowns at her, she doesn't cower and become apologetic. She thinks and remember she did nothing to warrant his frown and she calls him out for attempting to blackmail her. She has been thought to love herself and not to tie her dignity and worth to anyone but this is strange to him.


When she doesn't fall for his emotional blackmails and childish tricks,  he calls her insensitive. Her ways are unfamiliar to him, his skewed society trained him to see women a certain way but this woman is foreign. The idea of her unusual offerings appeal to him but in practice she is too much for him to handle.


That is why he tells any woman who is seemingly successful, independent and not intimidated by his skewed idea of manhood that it will be hard for men to stay with her. In his sentence you see that he views the climax of a woman's life as the ability to keep a man.


 His society programmed women to attach their significance not to achievements but to a man. So all his life, he became accustomed to women who embrace these skewed values. He actually thinks he is wise when he counsels the intelligent and independent woman to dumb down and become dependent or she would miss out on the 'best part of womanhood'. You would wonder who made him an expert in womanhood.


He speaks intelligently, he is educated but he is a product of a skewed society. His actions do not match his words. He has something in common with the cliche woman, they are both basic and products of a skewed system of reasoning.


He believes she is a property, she believes he is the God assigned owner. She lives off him, even at social gatherings she has to seek alms from him before she can buy the most mundane of things. He doesn't believe in delegation or sharing of power, he is a dictator and she is happy as long as the dictator is happy.


He may be with the intellectual woman and enjoy it but it is easier to live with the cliché. He would rather have a dull and insipid relationship as long as it is easier.


African men are brought up to be emotional sluggards. Their Egos are attached to everything and like most feminists cannot stand a contrary opinion.


They do not understand that it is not necessary to be in agreement with another, before you understand them.
They may stay for a day, two or three but if by the third day, they see you are all you could ever need, that you want them but don't necessarily need them, insecurities swallow them.


They opt out unless they find a leverage. A woman is supposed to need a man they think.


Pity them, they grew up in a strange society. A society where a pregnant woman is carrying a two year old baby on her back, and pulling two other young and undernourished children by hand under the scorching sun, with a tray pan filled with wares she hawks around on her head, sees her old school mate drive by in her car and she would say,  'oh, that girl na my mate o, but see me i don born three and I dey expect another but she never even fit born one, I thank God ooo.'


If you are beautiful, intelligent, smart and have your own going but no man seems to stay, darling, you didn't do anything to chase them, they run on faulty programming. They are unable to decipher you and your immense treasures.


Don't feel bad, pity them and thank God for saving you from inferiority ridden men. pray for them to find their level.


Keep developing yourself and keep being of value to yourself and others and live a full life. You won't be alone for long, if you don't want to.


When you feel down some times, Just remember the fault is not yours.
African men love to see that a woman needs them. They don't understand the appeal of a woman who wants you but don't need you. This is a fault.
A fault in our societal norms and collective perceptions of the dictates of manhood and womanhood. It's the fault in our men.