Society, without trying, inadvertently reinforces male stereotypes. Take your wife or girlfriend out for dinner. At the end of the meal get her to ask for the bill. Nine times out of 10the waiter will bring it to you (the man), even though asked by the womanfor the bill. Which, of course, reinforces the male’s role as provider.

Here is another example of how it affects us men in a lot of areas of our lives.

A long time ago after I did a degree at Wits, I took a year off before they were called, ‘gap’ years.

At some stage I worked on an oil rig in the North Sea. We worked two weeks on and two weeks off. Well one weekend a group of us riggers were down in England, when someone decided we should try parachuting. We find a place that offered it and went and signed up.

From the start I wasn’t keen. I’m scared of heights. But I went along. When it came for my turn to jump, and we were slowly gaining height in a rickety little Cessna, I was shaking with nervousness. By the time I had to get out and hold onto the wing, I was completely terrified and could hardly move; but still I jumped.

When I landed a woman I had invited along for the day ran up to me and hugged me and said that was such a brave thing to do. But it wasn’t.

The brave thing to do would have been to come down with the plane; but I was even more scared of the rough riggers mocking me for not jumping.

Now I wonder how many similar situations have happened to any of you, where you do something completely contrary to your nature simply because you feel it is how you are expected to behave as a man. How many times have you not ‘come down in the plane’ because society expects you to be ‘masculine’ and behave in a particular way?

Sometimes I think we forget women and men are different. For instance when you casually mention to your girlfriend that good friends of both of you have broken up.

“What happened?” she asks you.

“I don’t know….”

“What – didn’t you ask?”

“No we just discussed football results.”

If you had been a woman, you would likely have known all the reasons and more.

It’s a bit like how do you seduce a woman? You buy her lingerie, perfume, chocolates … take her to dinner and so on. How do you seduce a man? Pitch up naked – bring beer.

So, it seems a lot of things have to change before men can feel it is ok not to be a ‘man’ all the time.