Hell NO!I would not want to generalise but based on how I see some Rwandan men behave in public I will say some of them lack gentleness. Is opening for me a car door or pulling a chair for me to sit the only way a man can show he is a gentleman? Hell no! The way you will talk to a waiter or waitress when they bring you something you had not ordered for during a dinner date will matter and score you ‘gentleman points’. At times gentleness can be determined by how one uses the commonly considered ‘magic words’ as a result of an involuntary offense they have committed or as a way of being polite. The magic words include among others, “I’m sorry, Please, Excuse me”. I have encountered several scenarios with men here and I asked myself, “what happened to men being gentle”? Nowadays, a man will accidentally step your pedicured toes and walk away like nothing has happened or force his way into a room by shoving your shoulder without even uttering an “excuse me”. As a journalist, I always enjoy reading newspapers but there is nothing as annoying as someone grabbing a newspaper from you without asking. This is a habit that is common when using public transport. I was taught the trait of sharing from the time I was a toddler so if you use a friendlier tone I may end up giving you the copy while alighting to my proposed destination. Even when you just want to sneak a look through the paper, you don’t just grab it from me as if you are getting it from a selling stand. The other scenario that portrays our men as ungentlemanly is how they treat women in a queue either at the bank or when they are about to board the evening buses while going home. It’s disappointing to see a man queuing with a pregnant woman nearby and they never offer them space to be served first. The pregnant woman will only be served before the man in the queue in most case when the cashier or teller calls her to come and be served. Often in such scenarios the teller is a woman. I have constantly overheard some men claiming that the reason why they are not gentle to women anymore is because of the way most women organizations demand for equal rights. But advocating for women rights doesn’t mean that a man’s role changes. Advocacy for gender equality is aimed at addressing the injustices women face because of their sex. So with the above scenarios I have encountered don’t blame me for saying that alot of Rwandan men are not gentle at all. I believe my other sisters can agree with this assessment.
