Samuel D. Darpolor, Liberia - Coming out of the Box

For years, being a man for me meant to exercise power over women in every way; if I didn’t do that, I was considered to be a ‘weakling’. I am socialized by a patriarchal society on how to be a man; a man fits in a box of dominant, violent and what I now consider ‘negative masculinity’. It is a long journey from transforming from conforming to this negative masculinity into expressing more positive forms of masculinity.
I have realized that women are as powerful as men, and that there was a need to do them justice by seeing them as partners and to join them in campaigning for ending violence against women. During this campaigning however, I often felt that I was loosing something to the women. Often I acted defensive in these situations, shifted blame to women and made justifications for my own behavior. Until I attended a two week training organized by the Women Peacemakers Program of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, with the theme; “Overcoming violence, exploring masculinity, Gender sensitive Active Non violence.”
The training brought together 19 men from 17 Countries and 5 continents of the world with vast experiences in gender, peacebuilding and/ or non violence. The training was co-facilitated by Patricia Ackerman and Steven Botkin.
Despite the many experiences I have had in gender advocacy, I learned so much when they led us through a more practical and gender sensitive way of looking at the world and peacebuilding. From their facilitation, I learned the following:

1. There is an alternative to the negative, dominant masculinity box engulfing everyman. Every man has to accept that he is socialized with this negative masculinity in him, that he is also a victim of this, but that he can and should decide to ‘resist’ the negative masculinity and deal with issues in a more positive way.

2. That it is important to listen and be sensitive to the needs of women
This training has impacted my life so much! I feel strongly committed to working for gender justice, gender equality and to work together with women as allies in this work. I feel committed to listen and be sensitive to women in this process.
I am going to start by bringing back the teachings and experiences from this training back to my work and family. I would like to mainstream gender on every level and in every program of my work. I will also work on engaging policy and decision makers at every level, be it religious, political , social or traditional levels to consider gender justice in their laws, norms and values. I will also work – through specific programs -  on re-socializiation of boys and men in my community and encourage them to express more positive masculine behavior.
My special thanks to the Women Peacemakers Program, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Patricia and Steven, the participants at the training and my family for the support in various ways that have helped me gained such wealth of experience in gender justice.