The phrase lands often enough in Ghanaian homes, churches and classrooms that it barely registers as instruction anymore: man up. But for online journalist and “Boys’ Life Matters” advocate Kobby Kyei, those two words sit at the centre of a conversation he believes Ghana has been avoiding.
Speaking on Lifestyle with Rosie, Mr Kyei traced the expectation back to his own childhood — in church, at school, and among peers, where boys were routinely told to suppress fear, hide distress and project bravery regardless of what they were actually experiencing.
“You have to man up. You don’t have to show your emotions. You have to be brave. Mentally, if you are going through something, there’s nobody to share it with,” he said
The consequences, Mr Kyei said, go well beyond bottled-up feelings. He described friends from his own upbringing who were sexually abused by teachers and by maids in their own homes, and who had no clear avenue to disclose it, trapped between an expectation of stoicism and a culture with few structures for boys to report abuse.
“I have friends that were sexually abused and molested, and as we speak now, they were not able to share it. Teachers were sleeping with them. Their maids were sleeping with them. And who do you complain to?” he quizzed
It is this gap the absence of a clear, culturally sanctioned space for boys to speak about what is happening to them- that Mr Kyei’s advocacy is built around.
His campaign, visible on social media and on the T-shirt he wore for the interview, is a direct rejoinder to decades of public attention focused almost exclusively on the girl child.