The participants to this research conceive masculinity in
different ways:
Comanda: I am a man and the wife must know that. That is
the role of our masculinity that society has given us. We men are endowed with
power over women in the world and here it is the same.
Dondo: I can marry as many wives as I can but this is not
allowed by the wife. She is just a woman and she must be under man's control
and not the opposite; the force of a man is the many women and children around
him. We control women in everything.
Dira: We who `have many offices' must know how to rule
them. To have many wives is not an easy thing. The wife owes respect and total
obedience to men in the home. Lack of this will surely lead to conflict and
violence. Man is the only person to redress family members because his force is
natural.
Fikiri: I am a man in my family and everyone must feel I
am `Mwanaume' (a true man). This gives me joy and happiness. My power and
masculinity are inherent in me; they come from God, so why not to use
them?
Discussion
During a focus group interview, Comanda states that the main
factor that pushes South Kivu men toward violence in the homes remains
masculinity, power and the environment. On the same issue, Martin et al.
(2002:562) state that men's masculinity is a key factor that different ethnic
groups use and share for abusing family members.
In South Kivu, it has been found that men perceive their
masculinity in terms of number of wives and their capabilities to control the
family (Bahige, 1994:329). According to Dondo and Dira, polygamy reflects the
man's power and maleness. This infers that with many wives, the husband will
produce many children. Dira says that a man should have many `offices' but he
seems to forget that this is challenging.
Men perpetrate violence towards family members with the aim
of expressing their masculinity but they disregard the consequences that
follow. The ideas of masculinity shape men's violent control and insist on the
different forms of domestic abuse over family members and women, in particular.
Vuningoma (2003:99) confirms that maleness over the wife and the children in a
home hinders their rights, joy, cohesion and trust, which is another way of
abusing them. This means that man's esteem and reverence is fostered by
masculinity, which sometimes obliges him to be violent in order to be feared.
This is what Comanda calls the wife must know that he is man.
Fikiri is the microcosm of the participants who support men's
masculinity. Most men feel happy to be considered as full and real men in their
homes. Those who lack such an acceptance may feel compromised and incomplete,
which is conducive to domestic brutality. Men often digress when reasoning in a
way, for example, `a woman is not a person to fear or women must feel man's
masculinity'. In fact, the literature underscores that some men perceive
maleness in connection with the use of violence in the home, and that this
provides the perpetrator with joy when behaving coercively in the home
(Boonzaier, 2008:192). To some writers, there exist some men in society who
easily connect their masculine personality and the use of violence, mostly
beating (Arias, 1999:63). Domestic violence is therefore
regarded as just a symbol of the male status that is built
around intimidation, battering or use of force over family members.
On the other hand, South Kivu men know that they are in a
male-dominated society where they control every level in politics, economics
and religion, just to name a few. Men are the ones who define the fundamental
social ideologies (Olson and DeFrain, 2000:203). In fact, men in such a society
live the realities of being a man and besides, they have feelings and impulses
that are inconsistent with manhood. In case the husband develops worries of not
having his strength and dignity, Gelles (1997:98) says that this would make him
repress his emotions and attitudes.
Domestic violence takes the pattern of coercive assertion of
power to express `bwanaume' or maleness. Such attitude portrays how men are
very proud of applying violence towards family members, particularly the women.
In fact, domestic abuse is a typical influence that family members cannot get
rid of, which means that no family member must oppose the man's violent
attitude. Sungura (1999:43) confirms that the assumption that some African
women allow their husbands to abuse them by battering remains a strong
indication that women support men's violence provided that they preserve their
family unity.
4. 3. 3 Power assertion
In addition, a coercive attitude of asserting power over
family members depicts how South Kivu males centralise their violence in the
home, particularly over the wife for domination. The attitudes below were
collected in both focus group and in-depth interviews; they depict what is
stated above:
Fikiri: I think that sometimes, we must compel family
members to do our will. Such control makes them respect us. Some of us just
think that we only want to abuse family members and particularly our wives. No,
that is the power of being man.
Joco: Yes, if a man has a large family, it won't be easy
to manage them; this requires the application of power. Being a man is also how
much power of controlling them you have over your family.
Golo: I am a man but I think that women are weak
individuals who need men's
protection. For me, maleness means that we
consider women as our mothers and
sisters who must be respected and be listened to. They are
beautiful people God gave to men to help them and not to make them
suffer.
Discussion
Based on the above opinions, during an in-depth interview,
Fikiri and Joco confirm and explain how South Kivu men impose their power to
family members. Fisher et al. (2000:37) consider power as a relative and
essential component that gives influence and talent to an individual to
intimidate. As man is the head of the family, his power will influence coercion
and this affects everyone in the family.
Managing a big family is not easy. But for Joco, force must
apply to redress family members. Power does not necessarily refer to using
active physical force. Accordingly, Melgosa and Melgosa (2008:128) confirm that
the head of family may just listen to family members' claims but this cannot
change his attitude. In this way, hard power has been applied over family
members whose influence is weak. Some respondents informed us that such power
is supported by societal, customarily rules and norms, making man's word the
most valuable and final in the family.
The available literature tells us that men are sometimes
socialised to think that they can never dominate and give up application of
force toward their family members (Wood, 2009:146). Molesting a wife is easy
since this is not outrageous and not a big mistake. Some respondents avowed
that no single man can avoid this because no man is guilty for using his power
in the home. Rude (1999:9) compares this to the `husbands whose violent
reactions are all often seen as inevitable, understandable and somehow
pardonable.'
In an in-depth interview, Golo contradicted violent opinions
among family members. In his views, women are weak creatures who need
protection from men because they are valuable people to men. To Paluku
(1998:67), using hard power towards mothers, sisters and wives is abominable as
it hinders their total development. Such abuse brings shame among family
members because beating one's parent is a taboo as it breaks communication in
the home (Vuningoma, 2003:99). In fact, this implies that man's power should
mean that men do not
submit women to be like slaves to masters and that
collaboration is promoted in the family because the latter makes a unit.
Participants opposing domestic violence drew an example from the Bible that God
always takes care of women and that He always favours them because he
intervened two times to rescue the beautiful Sarah, Abraham's wife from rape
(Genesis, 12:14-20; 20:1-7).
South Kivu men's beliefs regarding domestic violence in the
province need to be looked at one by one in order to understand their reasons
of applying violence in the home.
