"I'll Make a Man Out of You" by Max M.

Max Marsland
Nyaruguru District, 
Southern Province

When I was a junior in college, I wrote a paper for a class on America in the 1970s about a “crisis of masculinity” in American culture. In the aftermath of Vietnam, the Women’s Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism, the emerging Gay Rights Movement, and the loss of faith in established authority due to Watergate, I saw that sports movies showed an attempt to rediscover what it meant to be an American man. What they showed was men losing; in Bad News Bears the underdog team and washed-out coach lose the big game, in Slapshot the team plays honestly for their final game and loses, and in Rocky Sylvester Stallone, the epitome of a traditional, working-class American man, gets beaten in the title fight by Apollo Creed. These films reflected what was happening in America then, and some of what’s happening in Rwanda now: in the wake of great social changes and increased opportunities for women, young men and boys don’t know what it means to be a man.

So, Rwandan men are in a predicament here: how can they react to women who are being empowered? I don’t have the answer; as an outsider, I and many other male PCVs are in a difficult position. I want to show Rwandan men and boys how to behave like how I think a modern man should, but there are some problems with this: as an outsider that isn’t my place, and frankly I’m not 100 percent sure what it means to be a modern American man. The best thing I can come up with is don’t feel threatened. Women’s empowerment isn’t at the expense of men’s; “power” in society isn’t a zero-sum solution. Roles shift and change over time, in every culture and every place in the world. Women in America have been fighting for their rights for decades and men are not worse off by it. I can’t think of a reason it can’t be the same here. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

I realize it’s difficult to not feel threatened; change is intimidating and scary (I think every PCV can attest to this). But, as difficult as it is, have faith. Many of the women I have met here are amazing people, who want to do incredible things to benefit their families, communities, and country first, themselves second.

Masculinity doesn’t need to be in crisis. It’s OK to not know exactly what it means to “be a man” because then you’re free to find it out for yourself, and define it how you feel comfortable defining yourself. This can only happen when you aren’t feeling under attack, when you are free to be yourself and pursuit your path without fear. You do you. As one of my favorite artists once said: “However you’re choosing to live your life is beautiful.”