By: Joseph Kamau Kiragu
Worth Noting:
- Our teachers and parents have been neglecting the boychild. Teachers primarily provide mentorship to the girl child leaving behind the male gender. They assume and believe that the boychild always knows the way forward for handling different situations; hence he does not need to be shown any direction.
- Parents also do not encourage the male gender on matters to do with education nowadays. They are just leaving the boychild behind. Others have been purchasing motorbikes for a boy child at a very younger age to operate as boda boda riders.
The position of a boy child in our modern society is changing at a frantic pace. While the issues of girl child empowerment gain prestige and intensify, the affairs of boychild continue to be sidelined. Most of the challenges that the boy child has been facing in our country do not receive that much attention; a lot of effort and focus has been directed to the girl child, who has made the boy child to remain lagging behind. When a girl child is assaulted, raped, abused, or neglected, such situations become news.
On the other hand, there is no news when the boychild is neglected, assaulted, abused, harassed, and abandoned. Such cases are belittled and remain unreported because our society has ignored and neglected the boychild. This is because the culture around us only believes that it is only the girl child who is endangered and needs more support and attention.
Our teachers and parents have been neglecting the boychild. Teachers primarily provide mentorship to the girl child leaving behind the male gender. They assume and believe that the boychild always knows the way forward for handling different situations; hence he does not need to be shown any direction.
Parents also do not encourage the male gender on matters to do with education nowadays. They are just leaving the boychild behind. Others have been purchasing motorbikes for a boy child at a very younger age to operate as boda boda riders.
Most people and non-government organizations have been coming up with various programs that are only advocating and promoting the girl child welfares only and forgetting the interest of boychild. This is wrong and should never be the case because a boychild is a child similar to a girl child.
Both are equal; hence they should be empowered all. We should not neglect and forget him as we empower the girlchild; therefore, empowerment should go both ways. Suppose we continue empowering girlchild and bypassing the boychild.
In that case, we will keep on making the male gender lag behind, and this can make many of them engage in nefarious activities, drop out of school and even be drug abusers. We can all control this by ensuring that there is a gender balance.
We all need a balanced society and functional people; we cannot have this by empowering one gender only; hence, inclusivity in assigning both genders are necessary for our community. The government and other stakeholders in our society should be at the forefront by advocating for inclusivity, whereby both genders are given equal attention and support.