Dr Andy Ofori-Birikorang Senior Lecture at the Department of Communication and Media Studies of University of Education, Winneba (UEW) has expressed worry about the fastest rate at which Ghana’s youth population is growing.
He said, the rate at which the country’s youth population increased posed greater challenge not only to themselves but the nation as a whole and added that, Ghana population doubles every 25-26 years.
According to him, the youth population accounted for half of the country’s total population and stressed that, it was about time serious attention was directed to curb the challenges these youth posed in the country.
Dr Ofori-Birikorang, was speaking on the topic “Men and Masculinities in promoting Gender Justice” at a Gender Summit as part of activities to commemorate 2018 Gender week by the Department of Gender of UEW, at Winneba.
He said four major issues were undermining the smooth operations of the young men and young women in the country and mentioned them as high incidence of drug and substance abuse, inadequate opportunities for participation in leadership opportunities and decision making, inadequate involvement in activities to protect and conserve the environment to ensure sustainable future and unemployment and underemployment resulting from inadequate and inappropriate training for the job market among other factors among other factor.
Dr Ofori-Birikorang noted that hat society have failed to do was that, to understand men’s roles and responsibilities towards gender justice, failed to understand men’s reluctance to get on board, and failed to understand how masculinity limes and obstructs male participation”.
Dr Ofori-Birikorang stated further that, many men suffered from socially-constructed gender stereotypes and therefore had much to gain from a gender equality society.
He said, men could also be victims of many forms of personal and institutional norms based on gender expectations; academic grades, promotion, material acquisition, among others.
“Getting men on board to ensure speedy acceptance of gender equality, men should be helped to gain higher sense of gender awareness and recognize gender bias in the system, so that they could defy the masculine norms,” Dr. Ofori-Birikorang added.
