Nearly said it’s shocking to see what some men on X Malawi (or should I say Twitter Malawi) have recently posted against women; but nah, I know better. It isn’t shocking. Evidence shows that Malawi is predominantly patriarchal. Even societies that were originally matrilineal across the country have been nearly devoured by patriarchy.

I almost made excuses that perhaps these men haven’t experienced love from… but then I remembered how I have argued against similar justifications for racism and xenophobia in the UK or the US when some sections wanted to put Putin or Russia as a scapegoat for the Brexit vote, UKIP or Nigel Farage and Reform’s rising popularity, or both of Trump’s elections. Remember the Russian-bots argument on Brexit or Trump’s first election; being used as reasons for the rise in racism and xenophobia, as though these societies were not already racist and xenophobic.

The truth is, these societies have always been structured this way; social media has merely amplified their prejudices or social media has made us more aware of these issues; whether it be police brutality, the racial profiling of Black people through stop and search, and the blatant hatred people like Elon Musk or Andrew Tate spew against a race or gender.

In other words, there is no excuse for the misogyny and sexism that I witnessed on X Malawi beyond the fact that these men are misogynistic and sexist and have a particular disdain for women. So, my excuse is partly evidence that as a man I can easily defend and find an excuse for my gender at the expense of the pain women are experiencing from fellow men in Malawi.

So no, I am not surprised by the hate being spewed on Twitter.

How do we address this?

Maybe we men need to educate ourselves. And by education, I don’t mean getting a degree; 10 to 15 years ago, my own comments would not have been much different; yet I already had my first paper by March 2009. This is why some men on Twitter can claim to be Marxist, Fanonian, or followers of Walter Rodney, Patrice Lumumba, and Thomas Sankara while still spewing hatred against women. That is hypocrisy to me or not really understanding the philosophy they claim to subscribe to. Just as you cannot fight racism or colonialism, past or present, while being a staunch proponent of capitalism. You just can’t! The exploitation is structurally entrenched.

Again, this is also why I stopped myself from saying that these men act out of pain because they have not received love from… I have seen racists who claim to have Black friends to validate their non-racist stance. I have seen xenophobes who marry foreigners and use that as validation of their claim that they are not xenophobic. I have seen people who marry Black partners or individuals from other racialised communities just to claim they are not racist. This kind of reasoning only individualises the issue and turns, in this context, sexism into a matter of personal failure rather than a structural and systemic problem that is widely trenched within Malawian society. But sexism in Malawi is not just an individual problem; it is a structural and systemic one.

So no, I am not surprised by the hate being spewed on Twitter. And again, how do we address this hatred and abusive and exploitative behaviour towards women? The same way we intend to fight racism and xenophobia in South Africa; the same way we are fighting against tribalism in Malawi; the same way we have been fighting against neocolonialism and capitalism in Africa; the same way we push for the expansion of AES across the continent; the same way we fight against every form of structural inequality. Because this hatred being expressed on Twitter is not just an issue of men being  unkind – it is a class struggle, and “every class struggle is a political [and power] struggle”.

To the women who are individually on the receiving end of this, I wish I could say that these men do not represent me or speak on my behalf the way it is demanded of the Muslim community… but that would undermine the pain my gender is subjugating you to. Instead, I refuse to distance myself from the harm my gender is inflicting on you. I acknowledge it and stand in solidarity with your resistance.

The hate you are receiving is patriarchy, as a structural empire, in full force fighting back after noting your ability to exercise agency and make your own choices instead of bending over to the ego at the core of the empire.

The rebellion must live on!