A Man of Honour - Part of the 16 Days of Activism

By Tumelo Joseph Maje

It was on a typically scorching day in Gaborone last year when I visited a very close friend of mine in the suburb block 7.

It was after the usual male banter and small talk that he mentioned he was dating an older woman. My obvious pride in the fact that the said friend had managed to snare a cougar turned to ice cold concern when he went on to say that the cougar was married to a soldier who was serving on a tour of duty outside the country.

With the recent spate of passion killings over the past few years, I was worried my friend would become a statistic.

But what drives a man to blind rage that is so violent it kills the very person he is supposed to love?

What is it within us that propels us to snuff out the life of the ones we hold dear? Those are some of the questions my friend and I pondered as we spent the afternoon chilling.

Being raised by a single mother, a strong, proud, black woman, I couldn't imagine ever touching a woman in anger. So it is with rising alarm that I see the ever increasing despicable acts of violence against women by men who have been rebuffed on, or cheated on.

In life there are many disappointments, things don't go according to plan, people don't act the way we want them to. If we all murdered or attacked then society would be in anarchy. The truth is there are a select number of disturbed, cowardly men that perpetuate these crimes by wanting to prove their masculinity by preying on women. And do not represent the current state of relations between the sexes.

The fight for gender equality has gone a long way and women have made many inroads over the last 20 years in society's acceptance of their worth as more than just weak, docile creatures that whose only place is in the home and all  that progress should not be overshadowed by the twisted realities of little cowardly men.

Because there are many honourable men out in this world that cherish their wives, sisters, mothers, aunties and grand mothers because they understand a woman's worth.