Segment Amathongo Episode 3 - Part 1 Toxic Masculinity in Religion & Tradition

Send us a textJoin us as we lay the foundation on what we think Toxic masculinity is in religion & tradition.Guest : Menzi Ka Gudu Maseko Social Media:-IG : @menzi_menzi Tik Tok : @menzikagudumaseko Subscribe on show link for more content. Support the showSubscribe and Follow us on all social media platforms.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good day, my unspoken truth family, and welcome to the segment of Amatomo. And today we are joined by Menzika Kujumaseko. And just before he welcomes himself, today we're tackling the topic of toxic masculinity in religion and tradition. And what brought about this topic is an African gesture, or should I say, a custom. A while back, a few months or a few weeks ago, I went home and I was visiting my mother and my father. And when I'm at home with my husband, we do the urban way of life. And when I go home, I still need to be an African child to my parents. So it was time for dinner, and I then had to remember, I had to make sure my father washes his hands, and I have to kneel to do so. So as I was partaking of this custom, something came to mind, and I wondered, would my father and my husband kneel down to us for us to wash our hands? And that's what brought the topic of is religion and tradition toxic masculinity. So just before we jump in, let's welcome Umkulu. He's been an awesome guest and a friend to the podcast for a while now. And I wanted him to just you know grace us with his knowledge because that's what we're here to do, to learn more, to be better, a band as best as we can. Umkulu, I I would say I am alive by the grace of he who creates us, or should I say she who creates us? Because yet again it can be a controversy because I believe that is a her. So she who created us and brought us onto this earth by her grace.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I'm doing well, no contradiction then.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So let's just um dive in. Or did you firstly, before we dive in, before we dive in, I have actually realized I never asked you how you'd like to be called. I have from the first time I got to meet you in the sessions that you hold, um, I assumed to call you umkulu because of your co-host would call you mkulu. And then ever since then, I have just decided to call you that. And I never got the chance to ask, what would you like me to call you? I respect you. Baba Massey.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

I do not mind being called Mkulu because I've been called Mkulu since I was a little boy. This is uh the way of uh our people, it's customary. My Baba Umgani, my father's uh younger brother, who is my father, of course, uh always calls me kulu or calls me kerta. Which all these words, they just mean old men, right? Because our people recognize that uh we are just returnees, you know, we are here incarnations of the previous one, not not even spiritually, just biologically. We just come from the loins of our grandfathers, just like that, uh you know, at infinite level. So I like to be addressed as Baba Masego, and I don't mind also just being addressed as men. The only thing I do not like to be addressed as is booty. Okay, just don't call me booty, yeah, and don't call me bro, yeah. But unless we're playing basketball together or we're playing football, we are sports together. Say, oh bro, you know, then we can but Jay on an ordinary setting, Baba Masego uh and just straight men's, which isn't the name that I honor, and that was given by my grandmothers.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Okay, Baba Masego, I'll also still call you Mkulu. I'll I'll see which suits um I'm comfortable. Yes, yes, yes, yes, because also, as much as you said we are returned, we are returned. Souls, sometimes umuntu has um is tunzi sake that gives him the authority in which that he carries himself. And I guess is really very fitting because of his tunzi sakle. We might not be so far apart on age, but there's also that that essence of um the respect in which your spirit is. So when I started, I said what brought about the topic was the custom. Okay, a custom of having to kneel down and um make sure my father would wash his hands before we had dinner, which had to then I had to now do it for my husband also because I'm at my parents' home. I can't show them that I don't do this at home, you know, modern uh I mean they didn't raise me that way. So now I need to show that I still can do it, and which shocked my husband because it's like, I've never seen you do this. What is this? And it just got me thinking, and when it got me thinking, it brought about this this topic, and only not that, that's tradition, right? This is our way of life, that's about being African. Then there's one that also leans into religion quickly before you dive deep in and you can tell us more. So when it comes to religion, a while back, 13 years ago, I fell pregnant with my son and born and raised Catholic, uh staunch Catholic home. And during that time, it was the hardest time of my life. And I just I decided to go to church. And when I went to church, I was turned back as I entered the door because I walked without a husband, and then I was asked, Where's the husband to this child you're carrying? I said, I don't have a husband, I'm 20. And the lady at the church said, But then you are not welcomed to come because you are bringing a child through sin. You are bringing a child out of wedlock. I turned away as post as prenatal depression that I carried, I turned away from the church because I wasn't welcomed anymore. Then I asked myself, but when a man enters a church, he has no signs that he has made a woman pregnant and he didn't marry her. But yet he's welcomed to the church. He's welcome to sit, you know. And all that for a long time has made me just question how toxic it could it can be. It could, maybe it's just a way of life, maybe it's not toxic. Maybe we just say it's toxic because the English word toxic. I mean, we all woke now, isn't it? We all know what's bad and what's good. Um, so those are the reasons why I thought we should tap into this topic, both religion and tradition. Because I have experienced, let's put it biases. It's more like a bias, isn't it? And then on that bias of religion, also, I remember again, I wanted back in the day, I wanted to be an outer server. It was very controversial then for females to be outer service, it just had to be boys. But through time, they ended up allowing us to be outer service as girls. Then I became one. But then I realized that being a female in the Catholic Church, it's whether you now you can be an outer server, but you can never stand on a podium. Only men can be priests, and women can be nuns. No man can be a nun, no woman can be a priest, and that's religion. So those are these two big topics that I want us to unpack as we start learning bit by bit on these traditions and religion and this masculine energy that surrounds them.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

This is amazing. It's a great topic, and I like the way you uh qualify it or bring it, bring it into kind of a context, a larger context. But as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, wow, turns out that religion is tradition. The dichotomy between religion and tradition is a false dichotomy, or it's a false divide. It's a polarity that only exists in our perceptions of what religion is and what tradition is. But both these uh uh ways of doing are actually just traditional, but they are traditional how why are they traditional? What makes them traditional? Succession, right? They are passed down, they are passed down from generation after generation, and they become yeah, so they become what traditional it's yeah, it's a standard way of doing things. Who sets the question now for us local people is who stands, who sets the standard, who makes the norm the norm? Habits, right? But who allows the habit? Society. Who is society? Men and women, right? Men and women, not women and men, but men and women, you see. So uh I emphasize that because uh it appears that uh in a lot of modern, what is called modern society or western design modern society, because uh a thousand years ago uh the society of that particular day was modern society, you know, depending on your on your definition of what modernity is. In Zulu, we guessed Zulu, we say Ismanj, which basically means the now, the way of the now, yeah, it's major right. So uh the there was even styles, you know, uh hair styles, uh that would be called Ismanj. Uh my mother used to tell me there was a told me there was a dance that they would do, it was called Isman Jimaj, which basically means the now, the present, the trending, right? So uh in Western society, which is the the the the the mode uh which sets the standard for the way we are living now, culturally, materially, economically, in many standards. It is the men who sets the standard, but it is the white men who sets the standard, not just men in general, because other men are only, when I say other men, I mean men of color, black men, brown men, Asian men, or even Muslim men of many different uh uh ethnicities. They are only beginning to set standards now because Western hegemony over this cultural institution is waning, is uh kind of decreasing. So even though of course there was a time when Islam in certain parts of the world set standards, like you know, people talk about all the Moors civilized Spain, civilized civilized Spain, they brought mathematics, they brought morality, certain kind of moral codes, they they brought sciences, they brought a certain kind of architecture, right? The more as being black Muslims of a certain era, right? Um the point I'm raising is that uh it sets in different ages uh tradition is set by different ruling classes, and most of the ruling classes are uh generally defined as the men of power within the society. So it's the what you experienced was just uh a symptom of patriarchy within the Catholic Church, which of course was manifesting in other spaces too, not just in the Catholic Church, but in the church generally. Where do they get it from? They get it from the scripture. What did the scripture say? But see, the man who wrote a particular verse within the Christian and Hebraic scripture of Saint Paul in this particular case said that it is not good for a woman to stand up and declare the word of the Lord to men. Not to uh the family, not to society, because I I I think I presume that uh the synagogue or whatever, the holy place at the time, only men would attend and women uh would be attending to other things. I don't know, people can correct me, but when he was speaking, he is speaking to men. Right. So don't stand up if you're a woman, because of many issues that he I think he also kind of declared, or they were traditionally declared women because of this, that, and that they just can't stand up and be preaching. Uh so the certain prejudices that are past on that are still existing with us today is something that we are experiencing. We'll go to the you kneeling to your father.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yes, perhaps. We will I like the fact that you said different uh men of different ethnicities. I've got yet another example. A while back again, my family moved to Saudi Arabia uh for a couple of years with work, and we got to stay in Saudi Arabia, and obviously we know it's a Muslim state. And did you wear the book? Everything had to talk. Okay, we've got no choice. We stayed in a compound that was protected by soldiers, a British compound. Um, and we had to yes, so we had to be escorted to the shops, whatever, which was perfectly fine. That wasn't my issue. So my issue was me and my mom and my sister needed bread and milk, but we can't go to a shop and buy bread and milk. So we would go to the shop with my brother at that time. He was about seven or six. So we'd go to the shop, we get the items, we stand back, and my brother at that age pays the food because we're female. The shopkeeper is a man, the shopkeeper is a man. Okay, and then you he pays, and then we walk out. And walking out doesn't mean we're standing behind him and looking dead straight in this man's face. No, like any other person, even if we're not Muslim, we had to go according to their customs and their traditions and adhere to it if you do not want trouble. So when you say that every different, it just brought that um that experience. I've had a few experiences where men of power, you know. Um, but I mean, Saudi Arabia is um Islamic state, so that's their way of life, right? I wouldn't know what they do, but this is the experience that I got. And these are the things where I'm like, is it toxic? Is this it's like this universe is full of toxic energy, toxic men energy, toxic traits and attitudes and belief systems that were designed only to benefit the man, never benefit the woman.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Okay, I don't want to say it's only emotional. I don't want to do that. It's a very toxic thing to say. Don't get emotional about it. Let's stay back.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

The book you you you you you you shared with me, we'll say the title at the end of the podcast. There's one part that got me when they said, or she says, we hold men hostage with our wombs because we decide to bring life. I said, but then did I choose to give birth? The universe could have made men give birth. Why, women? Why do we have to give birth? And then yet we are told we hold men ransom because a womb in which we give life that then creates the ego of I have brought life or I have a loin to my name, right? But yet again, still toxic male energy. Has a man ever asked a woman, do you want to have children? No. He says, I want children. He doesn't say, Do you want to have children? For me, if the woman were to say no, I don't, what does a man do? Go make children somewhere else. Still, okay, man energy surrounds every decision a woman has to make with her life. Am I wrong by saying that?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Uh, first I don't want to decide whether you are wrong or not, but I want to interrogate is this word toxic? Where does it come from? I mean, why are we saying okay? The reason I'm asking is because I want to take it back to the situation in a Muslim country and to interrogate whether Abrahamic religions, which include Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, are they toxic and what makes them toxic, and why would we define them as that? Because we are not within them. Would a Muslim woman define it as toxic, for example, a liberated or modern gay professional Muslim woman who happens to be the breadwinner, for example, in a home? I don't know if those exist, but probably do. I don't know. Um would they define it as toxic or do we define it as toxic because we are outside the culture?

SPEAKER_02 18:45

I feel well okay. Toxic in itself is okay, toxic in itself is one thing that favors the other, not the so it's an action that favors an other, which obviously deprives the other. So we call it toxic because it then benefits one but does not benefit the next. So we just say it's toxic, hence I said it's Western. There could be a better way of saying it, but we have decided to narrow it to one or two words toxic masculinity, because you know, society and the Western world gave us yes, yes. So we can call it male energy. I've been calling it male energy, male energy, because it has authority over anything else. Anything else sounds null and void. So maybe Muslim women don't find it toxic, but we can't speak for them either. A person without a voice or can action anything, can they be okay with that? I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Well, no, I just need to get that out the way, just to deal with really um we already said that it's a it's a world, we live in a world designed to benefit men first, right? So um I won't get to the anatomy of female power yet. We'll get to that too. But um this a friend of mine, uh journalist, um, uh challenged me one day when I was uh angry. I sent it I sent a uh a post on my Facebook uh talking about uh toxic masculinity, that we need to deal with our toxic masculinity. I was obviously ranting, but then I got interrogated the roots of how the word toxic masculinity came to be, especially, especially when it with regards to black men, right? So because we know that we've been uh uh what is the word, we've been uh not typecast, but we've been uh stereotyped and boxed into being, especially black men, speaking to black men and the black family now. What is the backup? We are being we become defined uh by the other, we have become defined by people coming from outside of our society, and they divine us as this is it possible that also uh uh this toxicity, uh the label of toxic masculinity is also a possible uh ill ill-defined uh uh uh stereotype uh uh with regards to black men, but I guess it's you you have not mentioned black, you said male energy. No, that's positive male energy. I believe like right now, as I'm sitting here, I'm expanding positive energy to the world. But once you say male energy, I I may find that. Prejudice. I may find that I may have to defend myself. I may say, what's toxic about me? It's I'm male. Is my the mere nature of my maleness? Or is it the system that I exist within that empowers me to have certain rights more than other baby? So the point I was just making is that before we carry on uh looking for solutions, let's look for uh ways to unpack the definitions that we use so that the words that we use are magical, you know, they we we spell healing into our society rather than confirming and reconfirming stereotypes, uh not because they're based on nothing. Obviously, you know, feminism arose because women felt oppressed. Certain movements are arise because of the oppression. So, as a response, you know, men become dogs or toxic or women are women, women are gold diggers, bitch, bitches, uh uh loose and emotional. Yes, you know, that's emotional, by the way, it's not supposed to be something bad, but it's using it. But it's using part of the web, yeah, it's certain part of Europe. The word woman when a man calls another man woman, you you it'd be like you you you we have two guys, yes, because it's like you undermining, but where does it come from? Is it body? Yeah, is it traditionally ours as all men? Are all men can be defined the same, or we have to bear the responsibility and the shame of other men who perform badly, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

And when you say that, it it it it um it brings that when you say when you say oh man, is it black man, or um is it toxic or is it just tradition, right? So if we were to go back and kulugas, you are a person of research, you are a person of um, you know, you dig deep into understanding who we are and who we've been um over the years. And I want to find out from you, right? Because we modern women have a voice, and I'm not saying women back in the day didn't have a voice, at all times. And it's not a bad thing, yes, you know, um, it's not a bad thing, but um it for us, it feels like we only built for the kitchen and childbearing. We can't be educated, we can't be lawyers, we can't be doctors, we can't that's how it came across, isn't it? But then I want to understand from the history that you have read, how African men were before what they are now. Back in the days, were there these men who say to women, you're emotional, were there men who wanted what they wanted and stuck to that, and the women had to just say, Yes, Baba, yes, Baba, yes, Baba. Or did it change along the way? Because we also need to remember with generations that there's been a lot of abuse to black men over the years that changed in character and that changed into our DNA a little bit. But do you believe that back in the day before all this westernization, where black men? I know you don't like the word toxic, but we're gonna use the word toxic. Where are we doing? Were they pushing the agenda of being indoor at all of dominant? Yes, did they have that authority?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I would speak for Abandu and specifically Abangoni, and specifically Abanguni of the South. Uh we were never the dominating sex uh or the dominating gender. What we were has always been a warrior-oriented uh people, and by warrior I mean it's in the sense of self-defense, defense of the homestead, defense of the family against real enemy, right? So that means that uh and we are builders, but we worked hand in hand with women in building society, and the place of women in Southern Africa amongst Abandon Abangoni Abangoni has always not been threatened. A woman has never been looked at as a threat, but women were looked at as a very important and central pillar in Sika of the family and of umusi and what is called a village these days, and the nation, uh, if a nation is a word that you can also use, you know. Um so the women were never a threat. So toxic masculinity among black men emerges out of the toxicity of the uh colonial situation, which came with its religions, came with with with with with its um expectations of what a man, yeah, what a man is supposed to be, came with education, came with an education that gives you a history of men and women only as support systems, not as inventors, not as builders, not as artists, not as artisans, not as technocrats, not as a woman has a place in Africa, in Africa, to speak of general, a woman's place is in society, at the center of society, both in the foreground and in the family thing. So the whole issue of childbearing and raising and making life within the family has never looked at, never been looked at in Africa as being a subservient position. You know, there are interactions where we interact, and so there are just rights of passage. I always emphasize the issue of rites of passage and ceremony. That uh I have a book here, uh, which I always quote, uh, which is called Kusatliwangulu Guru Dana by uh Sitim Simon. You can buy it online. It has a chapter which is uh Ugukulabazani and Ugukuli Soga Bafana Namandombazani, Ugupatwa nogukuli soga na namandombazani, which means the treatment and the raising of boys and girls, right? So, and then it takes you through different rites uh that are done under the moon, done under the sunshine, done from when you were born to when you are in puberty and to when you are getting ready to be married, both boys and men. I mean boys and uh girls, you know what I mean. So um the fact that the inequality, the inequality really manifests itself mostly on the competition level. And the competition level is only emerges out of private property. What is we call private property is a capitalist accumulation of power, which is mostly led by toxic European men, and which we are busy imitating, which we are busy imitating, European and Arab men, which we imitate as black people because we are dominated by them economically, and for some of us spiritually, those who follow those religions, but it's looked at as progress, it's looked at as authority, man. Um is the authority of the house. The question too, umama is the authority of the house, you know, but umama not to the submission of Ubama, and Umama not to the detriment of the whole family, you know. We both make the rules, but in Africa it is known generally as I conclude. In Africa it is known that from the great goddesses to the girl, to the woman, to the great grandmother, to the ancestor, women play a central role in our divinity, women play a central role in our in our upbringing, and women play a central role in our in the making of men and the making of life, of society. It is only disrupted by the inter. I mean, we we we are imitating those in power. That's the problem with us as black people. Our colonizers, yeah, we are mimicking the disorganization, the social disorganization, the social uh and uh uh ills of Western society, even the things that they have left behind, see that we are only picking them up now, trying to do them. You know, I want to make an example of FMG, also, uh which is a female FGM, female genital mutilation, which happens in North Africa. Most people attribute it to black people, they say it's a black thing, but if you trace it, you can find that a lot of its roots are in the Islamization of those black societies. Now, is it written in the Quran? Maybe not. I don't remember seeing it in the Quran, but it is part of the traditions of certain pagan Arab nations that interacted with us, and then we took up that. How do we take that up? Because they dominated us. Now we've taken up a lot of their traditions as part of us. Like black, like sudden black people wear in Z, like black clothes, you know, we pay 11 cows, we do all these things that we think are tradition, but they were instituted by the colonial class.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

We adopted things that we actually, yeah, yeah. We adopted um ways of life thinking it's our culture, but it's actually something that our forefathers took from pagan society.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

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