Imagine this; you’re a woman walking down a pedestrian crossing alone. Up ahead, just beyond your destination, you see a group of men, leaning against a wall, laughing and drinking together.
Your heart speeds up but you continue walking.
You are almost there.
Closer and closer you get nearer to the clique and just as you pass, one of the men notices you and yells out for you to stop and come over. But you don’t and you say nothing.
You just want to get there and not be bothered.
Another irritable man from the circle calls out to you and with each step of your silence he and his friends grow angrier.
Out of the corner of your eye, you notice a liquor bottle in someone’s hand. You get scared but continue walking. After all, you are almost there.
And just when you think you’ve arrived, the first one says something so harsh, you have to look back and when you do, you are met with a shiny bottle to your face.
Someone threw something and it’s too late.
Your face is burning and you’re so scared and as the verbal attack continues, you keep thinking to yourself how you were almost there.
This is a prime example of a situation that has happened in our very own society.
An epidemic that suggests that young men in our society are showing less respect for and getting more aggressive towards their female counterparts.
Before this outbreak of cruel reaction of men towards women, men were gentlemen and gentlemen were respectful whenever they greeted a woman.
However, today’s society suggest a blatant disregard for the admiration of a woman when she is alone in a store, sitting at a table or walking down the street.
Perhaps there isn’t a change at all. Maybe such actions of a young man toward a woman occur rarely and are only magnified by an ignorant eye.
But if it is not, and such displays are becoming common, then we must take a serious look at the turn that a man’s conduct towards a woman has taken.
No Regard
Margaret Smith, a 79 year old resident of High Rock said that she has seen a definite change in the way young men act towards women.
“I remember when if a man wanted to court a girl, he had to go to the daddy first and ask permission just to take her out. It’s not like that no more,” she explained.
“I think these days the boys are getting more bolder through what they are saying and doing to women because the world is changing, sometimes for better and worse. These children getting more exposed to things, things when I was their age I could not even think to do. They have a lot of freedom. Maybe too much.”
Growing up on the family island of Exuma, Smith, a straw vendor, said that her early years of living were embraced by manners and the obligation to respect elders as well as the opposite sex, however, Smith said that, that this is no longer the case.
“I don’t know what wrong with these young children these days. I remember everything use to be yes ma’am no ma’am, yes sir, no sir. You had to have respect for one another, but now they growing up their own way” she said with disappointment in her voice.
“Now they just shout out whatever they want tell you. Like some dog. I’m not bashing every young boy or girl out there but my God, the things I does see these days, makes you think we living in the last days,” she said shaking her head.
“And these young boys, they just have no more respect. No more. They have no regard for nobody, not even themselves.”
Perhaps there has been a shift in the way young men behave in today’s society.
And if this is so then why are some men so aggressive towards women? Why do they have no respect for their very own companion?
A ‘Pack’ Mentality
“I think it all depends on the environment that the men may be in,” said Letitia Campbell, 22.
Remembering a dark moment in her life when she was groped by a man when passing him and his friends, Campbell agreed that such episodes occur more frequently than in past years.
Despite her dispiriting experiences where men were un-admirable towards her and her female friends, she said that there is a reason for a declining respect among men toward women.
“Most of the men would not be doing what they are doing half of the time if it wasn’t for their friends,” she mused.
“All of them cannot be like that. It is just because of certain people they may be with, they may be lined up across the wall and if you pass and say nothing to the one that was calling you out, then they feel embarrassed. Their egos become bruised and so they lash out at you.”
Campbell said that men approach women differently when they are by themselves. She said that pressure is the major reason for the way some men act toward women.”
The young woman also revealed that a pack mentality exists among men who are surrounded by friends.
She also believed that a nice guy may not act accordingly because he himself may not want to feel ridiculed when he is surrounded by a bunch of his male friends.
“A man may be around his friends and if he does not act a certain way towards a woman then he is considered a punk right? Obviously nobody wants to be put down.
“Men sometimes feel how we women feel when we’re under pressure, they just go about it differently.”
Conceivably, a gentlemen may turn into an uncivil human being if he is encircled by men whose values toward women are not the same.
Perhaps the man feels so pressured that he erases his very own values and shrinks down to one who will grope a woman when she passes down the street in order to be accepted by his peers.
And if a man is willing to change himself to avoid being an outcast, then how can his mannerisms be changed?
A Male’s Perspective
Jamal Bowe, a 21-year-old, who has witnessed harsh behaviour toward a woman by a group of men said that the reason for such display of disrespect is because of humiliation.
“The reason why I think guys come up with that reaction where they give negative feedback to a girl’s reaction is because they too are embarrassed and they don’t take too well to rejection,” he said.
Bowe said that a situation would be different if a man made advances toward a woman alone. “I think if a guy approached a girl by himself then things would be different. There won’t be a negative outburst and he would be more subtle. He would not get that dominating feeling he has when his boys are there.”
With the belief that this type of behaviour occurs most among younger people, Bowe said that such behaviour is decreasing with each passing year.
“Guys feel embarrassed when they can’t get that response they wanted to accomplish. So they want the women to feel like how they feel. That negative reaction would not happen if the girl did so much as looked his way,” he explained.
“If a girl simply acknowledged him, she doesn’t have to show she isn’t interested, then it would not happen. It is only when she doesn’t do anything when they may turn on her.”
Respectfully Speaking
Karen Armbrister, Etiquette Teacher and Director of Public Relations for Access Ministries said that the problem between men and their mannerisms toward women reside in the mind.
“I believe that the first thing we need to do as a society is to change the mindset of our young men and the only way we can do that is through the love of Christ,” she said.
Armbrister believes that there is transformation and freedom in Christ that will help the mentality of the men who have acquired an abominable behaviour from their environment.
“A lot of these men do these things because of the environment from which they came from. They do it because that is all they know; they were reared in an abusive society.”
Describing a few instances where she has experienced such behaviour, Armbrister said that there is a proper solution to helping the demeanor of a man when he verbally abuses another.
“When I had my incident where I silently walked past a man in which he started calling names, I walked over to him and asked him why was he doing such a thing.
“The more I spoke to him the more he calmed down. As a result of that he admitted to me that shouting out was the best way to get attention because it was the only thing he knew. He felt that women didn’t deserve anything else because he had a lot of hurts and pains from them,” she explained.
Armbrister also revealed that women too suffer from a ‘no respect’ syndrome toward men because they themselves may not have been brought up in a proper environment.
“Some women who have had deeps hurts in their past or grew up where their father abused their mothers also tend to have a negative demeanor toward men. They start to say that all men are no good,” she explained.
“There are some women who provoke these kinds of responses, which makes them in a sense, the one to disrespect a man.”
Having agreed that both sexes can produce the same disrespect toward the other, she said that the major solution to this growing problem is awareness and a new conditioning of the mind and spirit.
“There is absolutely no reason for a man to treat a woman with no respect. Nor a woman to treat a man in a dishonourable way,” she began.
“We need to put our young men and women through some programmes. We need positive role models for our young men because you’ll find that most of the young men sitting up on the blocks come from good families who have knowledge of it but they have been swayed off by friends and pressure,” she continued.
“If society can just come together and help each other by eliminating that ignorance then you would not have a man shout out some kind of abuse to a woman or a woman saying that all men are dogs.
“It begins in the home through positive teachings. If we were to do this, then all would not be lost.”
The Highest Regards
It’s may be that a man can slander a women as she passes down a street or a woman can believe that all men are the same but how will this affect our future?
What is certain is that both men and women exhibit the same demeanor and experience that same familiar plight, feeling degraded, disregarded and disrespected.
Maybe our best solution is to remember the better values. The mannerisms that should be taken into our highest regards.
And as long as we do that, then our society will be filled with both men and women who are saving for an admirable future.
Aye You! – Today’s society suggests that young men are showing less respect for and getting more aggressive towards females.
*Not an actual situation, models are in a posed position.(Photo by TAMARA DELANEY)
Excuse Me Miss – Making positive mannerisms and attitudes our highest regard is the best solution for achieving better values. This can result in a society filled with both men and women sowing a better society for the future.
By TAMARA DELANEY, Freeport News Reporter
