Our men should never feel unappreciated

A GREAT man once said, “With great power, comes great responsibility”. Now sure, that man was a fictional character from a children’s comic book who was uncle to a teenager that got bitten by a radioactive spider, got super spider powers, and flies around New York City fighting bad guys in a red and blue spandex spider suit, but he was great nonetheless.

Men have historically been afforded great privilege in pretty much any society you can think of, well, with the exception of the Amazonian society, and although once again fictional, was described as a peaceful society without any involvement from men. At the very least, it makes you wonder why a society ruled by women, real or not, was considered paradise.

A CELEBRATION FOR THEIR POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS

Putting that aside, International Men’s Day is a celebration of the positive contributions of men to our society, and certainly they are numerous. We should not take for granted the good deeds of those who have access to the resources to perform them, because those resources could just as easily been used for unsavoury and clandestine purposes.

For anyone that knows any good men, who are fortunate enough to have those men be a part of their lives, they should never let them feel unappreciated. Those men, the ones who choose to do good with their privilege, who choose to use the power with which they have been given to uplift those around them, and who every day choose to recognise their responsibilities and be accountable to them, must be appreciated.

However, on this day, let us not get so swept up in the grandeur of how far the good deeds of men have taken us that we ignore how much more we need from them. Jamaica needs its men to continue to do more, so that our families, our schools, our workplaces, and our society can flourish and be a place where people feel safe enough to build a life.

Men are not superheroes. No one expects them to save the world, but we do expect them to rise to the challenges put before them whatever they may be. We expect them to be good fathers to their children and partners to their spouses. We expect fathers to be people that sons can look up to, daughters can rely on, and spouses can depend on.

The responsibility placed upon the shoulders of our men is great, but we celebrate this day because it is indeed possible to live up to such great responsibility.

So as we show our men some love and appreciation, let us also encourage them to do better. Let us dispel the ‘Amazonian’ narrative that our society is a better place without the presence of our men. It should be the hope of all Jamaicans to one day be a part of a society which boasts of the contribution and presence of men as being invaluable.