Let's create dignified spaces for all to express love to those they love

Kakamega flowers vendor Emmanuel Angote hawking flowers at Muliro garden during Valentine Day on Feb 14, 2025. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard] Kenyan men just showed up. In a significant departure from previous years, men from diverse backgrounds chose to mark Valentine's Day by declaring "Safisha Rada". The initiative seeks to inspire men to address negative masculinity and violence between the sexes. Several legends precede our contemporary understanding of Valentine's. For most, the day is an opportunity to shower people in our lives with flowers, drinks, chocolates, a meal and hopefully, love. The story of St Valentine is one of my favourites. Like today's Gen Z and last year's Finance bill, young Christian priest Valentine rejected Emperor Aurelius Claudius II's decree that single male soldiers should not wed. The emperor feared marriage would render his male soldiers too weak to protect his empire. In secret, Valentine continued to secretly perform marriages for young lovers until he was discovered and killed. At its source, Valentine's Day is a fight for all human beings to love who they love. It is a fight against state-repressed romantic relationships. In celebrating Valentine's Day, we celebrate Valentine for his courage and sacrifice to stand up against an empire that violated the inalienable right of human beings to choose who to love. Over 1700 years since the Roman state executed Valentine, many generations and genders have celebrated the day differently. For some, it has become a way to rebuild consumerism post Njaanuary and sell overpriced flowers. Others have used the moment to combat discriminatory social attitudes against women and non-binary persons. Five years ago, legendary Kenyan thespian Mumbi Kaigwa, the late Lorna Irungu and several women first staged Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" in Nairobi, for instance. More recently, some Kenyan men appropriated the moment to declare they couldn't send women flowers on Valentine's Day because they were too busy at the "Men's Conference". What could have been an opportunity to assert positive masculinity, leadership with integrity, love and respect for all genders was lost. A sense of entitlement, dominance and superiority slowly seeped into our physical and online spaces. The lack of safety in our homes, streets and marketplaces flipped online and created the "manosphere", a network of sexist websites and social media platforms. Suddenly, it became okay to say, sexually or financially independent women needed to be cancelled, slut-shamed and body-shamed. Men can troll or literally physically beat women and girls into submission. For these proponents, hate speech, bullying, harassment and anti-equality are healthy expressions of free speech. While we advocate zero tolerance and stiff sentencing for all forms of gender-based intimate partner violence, we must also address five growing male fears. Trends show that girls are catching up in our schools. Men are finding it as hard as women to find jobs. We are also struggling with self-esteem and substance addiction. Holding down relationships and building families in the presence of confident women seems increasingly more difficult. While these trends reflect a society that is steadily, but very slowly, inching towards realising equality and freedom from discrimination (Article 27), we need to address the emasculation (sic) of male power and privilege. It is in this context that the launch of "Safisha Rada" by Kenyan men is very significant. Led by influencer Abel Mutua, men on several social media platforms sought to change the narrative yesterday. They argue men must create their own spaces to discuss male identity and masculinity. The spike of gender-based intimate partner violence is too destructive to leave women alone. Men also have a primary responsibility to transform all spaces where negative stereotypes, slurs and slaps are permitted. No place of work, faith, entertainment, business, sport, kinyozi, website, or our homes must be spared, they argue. The late young priest Valentine would be proud of us. The true spirit of Valentine's Day is the creation of safe and dignified private and public spaces for all human beings to freely love those they love if it is consensual. The next time someone says something sexist, just respond "safisha rada chief".

Let's create dignified spaces for all to express love to those they love

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