Learn to Unlearn to Relearn
“Your wife or girlfriend is not worth your respect at all and you are the king of the jungle and that is why you are in the forest.” He(keeping the name anonymous) was told by his caretaker or instructor during circumcision. “Every time my wife must obey my rules and I rule my house”, his caretaker added. He was 15 years of age when he went to the forest for circumcision and he was taught to exhibit toxic masculinity whenever interacting with women. He was also instructed to interact with his friends who went to the forest together to help him practice what he LEARNT. After a few weeks, he left the forest and he was celebrated by his community for being a newly circumcised young man. Was it necessary for this young man to practice what he learnT? Did what he was taught and learnt good? Was there any chance for him to start UNLEARNING and try to RELEARN what he was taught?…….
The Art of Unlearning
Unlearning is having the capacity to use your current knowledge and skills you have obtained to challenge some beliefs and learnings that you had obtained before. Since learning is a continuous process that happens every day in human beings, it is important to disqualify some of the previous knowledge that had been taught to you if a strong negative conviction is realized about it by the current knowledge you have.
Life After The Forest
After the forest, he was turning 16 years and he was heading to grade 10 academically. In school, he managed to get a couple of friends who they went to forest together and formed a friendship group. It was time to practice what they had been taught in forest. It was time to show they were the “kings of the jungle”. With his friends, they used to harass their fellow females students. They felt entitled to their fellow females students. Their females friends were also afraid to report them to their parents as their fathers also believed that men are the ‘kings of jungle’. What was left for their female friends, was to adapt and comply to what these “kings of jungle’ wanted. This was their behaviour till they matriculated three years later. They had developed a character which they saw it was fit in the society since this is what they learnt in the forest. Unlike his friends, he was smart enough and managed to earn a university admission. When he came to university things seemed to take new swing.
Phase 1 of Unlearning: Resistance
During this phase, the knowledge that need to be unlearned is identified. The consciousness of unlearning comes when what used to be normal starts becoming difficult to achieve. Resistance to unlearn starts to develop and a conflict between what you are used to and the current events arises. In this phase, one starts to think why is it difficult to achieve what they are used to.
During his first week in campus there was an orientation session where the speaker spoke about the importance of respecting everyone including fellow females students. He did not take it seriously but something registered in his mind which was different from what he was used to but he ignored what the speaker was speaking about. When classes started, he started to interact with female students in the university but he realised that it was not same kind of interaction he used to have in high school. He found that his fellow female student were demanding respect when he was interacting with them but he was still struggling to grant them respect. One night he attended a club around campus and he felt entitled to a lady who was on the dance floor and he harassed her but the club bouncers threw him out of the club. This was the starting point of a new dawn in his life.
After the unfortunate incident in club, he decided to speak to his friend about it but his friends still suggested it was a just a bad day for him. He did not feel satisfied with his friends comments as he felt a strong conflict with what was happening and what he was used to. He decided to consciously approach a student leader who was championing women rights in campus and decided to have a conversation together to help him understand what was happening. The student leader explained to him the importance of unlearning what he had been taught in the forest and what he was used to and stressed the importance of relearning that it was important to respect women. The student leader told him that he was in the first stage of unlearning as he was having a conflict with letting what he had known go and replacing it with new knowledge. The student leader encouraged him to attend gender equality workshops in campus so to keep engaging with other students.
Phase 2 of Unlearning: Changing attitude
During this phase, positive attitude starts to develop of letting the previous knowledge go . Strong willingness to accept new knowledge develops and relearning process starts.
Through attending gender-equality workshops , he started to learn the importance of respecting women. He started to see the need of equality amongst genders. He participated in debates and seminars where he interacted with gender-equality enthusiasts who helped him learn and more-so showed him the importance of teaching others to observe gender equality. He felt challenged and made a conscious decision to teach his friends the importance of respecting women. Through this, he was ready to let the previous knowledge go and started to appreciate the new knowledge.
Phase 3 of Unlearning: Embracing the new Learning
During this phase, what has be relearnt is practiced and implemented and more-so embraced.
He started to respect women such that even when he went to clubs he started not to feel entitled to women. He started to teach his friends the importance of respecting women and more-so condemning them when they could disrespect women. He started to show them the importance unlearning their previous behaviour and letting it go and appreciating new change.
Importance of Unlearning and Relearning to curb Gender Based Violence
With above story, it is clear that toxic masculinity does not start in classroom, it does not start in work place, it does not start in church rather it is deep rooted in our upbringing or simply it is cultivated through learning which young boys are exposed to. On 3rd September 2019, Premier of Western Cape, Alan Winde, through facebook post and I quote he said, “How boys are raised , whether they have respect for others instilled within them and men they become, determines the levels of violence in our society..” He added that it was important to carefully manage what young boys are taught and how they absorb the knowledge they consume. Graca Machel, Chancellor University of Cape Town said that and I quote “Something is deeply wrong with our society”. What is this something was the chancellor referring to ? I think she was referring to how young boys are taught to become men and meaning the “how” was the problem as this is where they learn how old men are and try to copy their behaviours . Taking an example of the story above, the guy described above when he was young he was taught never to respect women. He was taught and he learnt the behaviour. Unlearning it it was a struggle. He might be lucky to have unlearnt it but let us think how many have were taught the same and have never had the thought it is necessary to unlearn the behaviour. Aren’t we in danger? And if if we are on the danger, how do we do it? One solution we need to teach them the importance of unlearning and relearning. We also need to think what these young boys are taught when they go to the forest and in the family. Have you ever overheard mothers or aunties saying “Let boys be boys?” Why do they say so? Simply it is because society has designed a way of how boys should behave. Might be parenting contributing to cultivating rape culture? Do our parent need to unlearn and relearn new ways of parenting mainly young boys? See this article written by news24.
We need to teach everyone the importance of unlearning unkind behaviour when their knowledge approves their previous knowledge.
Unlearning is a process and it grows gradually. It is important always to maintain an open mind to learn new things so as to unlearn past things. It is important to always have the willingness of unlearning. Unlearning is discovered as a difficult task as human beings always try to be conservative with what they are used to. By default human beings are lazy and asking them to unlearn what they learnt before, they regard it as disrespecting the time they took to learn what they already learnt. So it means to make someone unlearn or feeling the need to unlearn requires deep conviction to unlearn what they already know.
Where is he now?
He graduated in 2018 from University having taught his friends the importance of respecting women. He is part of a group of staff who are on the frontline to stamp out rape culture in his company where last year one of the senior manager was sacked due to his perpetuated behaviour of harassing fellow interns. The manager was exposed by him.
It is crystal clear that during unlearning, new knowledge is obtained. The willingness to unlearn is very important as it helps someone appreciate the new knowledge. The process of unlearning starts with resistance to unlearn followed by developing positive attitude towards accepting new knowledge and finally embracing what has been relearned.
Author: Willie Macharia, currently a software engineer at Electrum Payments, Cape Town. https://www.electrum.co.za/
Email: ngangawillie84@gmail.com
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