duk
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 13/Dec/2010 21:33, 34 days ago
When Howard Barker– for whom I have a deep respect tempered with just a little mistrust of his possibly excessive pretension – writes a play, he does so with the absolute minimum of research. Take Ursula, for instance, which remains in my memory as at least among the most powerful things I’ve experienced in a theatre (oddly, it was in a two thirds empty Birmingham Rep with my mum.  Very rock‘n’ roll). Having heard a muttered – maybe it was even a pub version though I may be mythologizing the notion too far – summary of the virgin saint’s story, Barker decided it would make an interesting play and wrote one while determinedly avoiding finding out anything more about it. I think it’s got something to do with preserving the immediate wonder of the story that struck him or something. I’d have to be chained up to resistWikipedia. Anyway, I invoke the funny little man as my patron saint of taking an idea and running with it without too much knowledge or research and simply for the value it has in my own head. Don’t judge me too harshly.So, there’s a development-type sociologist fella who hasdifferent measures for societies. There’re five different fascinating ways in which his tool grades people’s existence so they can all be compared with one another. It’s a dream to a western man such as myself,obsessed with measuring and naming things of all kinds. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a chart specifically for Nigeria, but there is one for West Africa (They’re all the same, aren’t they?), and there is one for the UK (sorry if you’re reading from another country: you can make your own comparisonshere).Now, there are all kinds of interesting things that can be drawn from this– andanother volunteer does so here, which is where I first learnt about all this fascinating stuff. (And of course all the usual provisos apply– generalisations, sample sizes, complex situations and simple statistics, blah blah.) But what really grabbed my goolies is the respective masculinity indices for the two countries. I have what you might call an aspiring professional interest in this area, as well as a personal affinity to the subject being – so far as I’m qualified to judge and yes, I have read The Wasp Factory – a man myself. And a very charming one too.The website explains that this is an interesting index of societal norms and expectations because, where femininity is broadly the same across all peoples, masculinity varies fairly widely. That’s a bit of a truism for anyone who’s explored gender studies at all, but is interesting nonetheless. The masculinity measure is actually, it explains, really a measure of what I’d prefer to call something like ‘macho-ness’ (hey, it’s a newish field – elegant terms have yet to be coined). The website in fact describes it as the opposite of femininity, which is just about the last thing I’d describe masculinity as.  So the measure is to what extent men are expected to be strong, silent, violent, grumpy, unemotional, distant from‘feminine tales of unaired shirts, catarrh and toothaches’: that kind of thing. You get the picture: the Maggie Thatcher of men.And– check it out – West Africa is less macho (his terminology kinda forces me to say, though it’s absurd, less masculine) than the UK. (That’s the bars in the middle, kids.  The one with‘MAS’ at the bottom.)This feels like a massive shock to the system: the instant reaction of anyone who’s spent any time here (or, probably, anyone who’s taught West African boys in an English school) is to check their eyes and email the website recommending a thorough check of their data along with some careful redefinition of gendered terms. Nigerian men are theogasof their households. They are in charge– and even more so in the Muslim north. Domestic violence is not uncommon; violence generally is the preferred method of controlling anyone (provided they’re weaker than you, obviously. Otherwise it’s not so great). You remember that incredible exchange between Thersites and Ajax in Troilus and Cressida? No, of course you don’t. No-one does. But if it were taught in Nigerian schools much social control would collapse overnight. We’ve had all manner of amusing / infuriating interactions at work because it’s critical for us to understand that I am superior to my wife. We can all playthe game at work and listen to what the women say, but when the whistle blows (you remember that cartoon – is it a Road Runner? – where that happens?) we forget those absurd and childish roles and expect women to serve us as our penises have given us the right to expect. I’m sure Jenny has written more effectively and searingly inher blogabout that.At the same time as displaying such overweening behaviour (not so long since it was the norm in the UK too, of course: easy to forget), Nigerian men are free to perform in all kinds of other ways. They hold hands. All the time, and at any age. I don’t think I’ve held hands with anyone apart from about three girlfriends (I wasn’t a childhood stud) and my wife in my post-crossing-the-road-holding-tight-stage of my life, and it shocks me quite profoundly to walk along talking about a work issue, hand in hand with a work colleague. They wearmagnificently garish and exotic clothes (I was much too sober with my first kaftan outfit: more outrageous stuff will follow). Pink and sparkly is positively the glorious cornerstone of anokkadadriver’s wardrobe. They hold and play with babies – from a fresh faced trainee to a wearymallam– whenever the opportunity presents itself. (Babies, in fact, are ever present here: I’ve been to very few meetings with external organisations where at least one baby wasn’t present. I don’t think I’ve travelled long distance more than a couple of times when a baby wasn’t in the car. It’s always more or less impossible to know who’s the parent and who’s just a gnarled old man with a child he doesn’t know gurgling on his lap.)  There appears to be no fear of being called gay or girly here (and homosexuality is obviously a brilliantly interesting area to explore further in this context).Masculinity is– to my eyes – miraculously broad here. It’s a latitudinarian approach to gender construction. (Interesting to contrast this with Nigerian femininity, incidentally, but that’s way outside my expertise.) I was going to prattle on to suggest some reasons for this, but everyone’s bored now soI’ll move swiftly to English masculinity, poor battered beast that it is.Behaviours at both ranges of the spectrum I’ve just described are, I think, outside the acceptable norm for English masculinity.  One is macho; the other effeminate.  Neither is masculine.  My masculinity is an increasingly narrow path, beset on either side by dangers: the high tour and deep diche of Langland’s vision, in a way.  At least part of this is caused by believing in precisely that definition of masculinity that Geert-Hofstede provides: it’s the opposite of femininity, stupid.  This creates a communal identity which, rather than holding hands and looking inward to the common ideas that bind us together, holds hands and looks outward to what defines us by being Other.  Historically (I’d suggest) this is how you know a community is up shit creek: when it can define itself only by holding up its skirts and shrieking ‘not that!  don’t let it touch me!’.I think it’s fair to suggest (though shouldcertain demented journalistsread it I’m sure they’d sweep down upon me to strip the flesh from my bones) that feminine identity in the UK has experienced a concomitant broadening in the past forty years or so. Behaviours that would have been unthinkable to the glorious Clementine Churchill and her chums range from the absolutely everyday to the at-least-thinkable-even-if-disapproved-of-by-Anne-Widdecombe.  There’s an argument to be made, I think (though, as I say, I’m not going to go there) that femininity in Nigeria is quite a confined space in which to dance.  I wonder if that’s an interesting forest to explore: the possibility of gender balance (in the sense of encouraged performance, not wage packet.  I’m not going to have that argument here.).Anyway, it’s interesting.  I don’t envy Nigerian men their status: I’m one of many people who frequently feel uncomfortable with the straitjacket held out to them by the world based on their gender.  I’d certainly rather not be the one who’s looked to first in every situation, and expected to lead, and forced to lead in socialising.  And there’s a lot more to be discussed around this: I’m fascinated, for instance, by the way in which our (Victorian) construction of male as stronger equates to males having the rougher deal (as in, carrying stuff, opening the door, that sort of thing) – but here the same construction makes males stronger and better, but follows that supposition’s ‘therefore’ with the conclusion that men should have the best seats, the first choice of food, and be generally supported and coddled at all opportunities.  I wonder if it’s connected to a social economy where there are (presumably, historically, given the prevalence of one man marrying several women) fewer men than women.  I wonder lots of things.  All good food for thought, and interesting stimuli to prod back at the construction of maleness in Anglo-Saxon texts, which is of course the end of all our journeying.