The curious case of unteachable men
Being wrong can only prove two things: you are useless if you refused to learn from your mistakes or you are wiser after learning from them.
By the time a woman reaches thirty, she has attended more webinars, seminars, conferences, prayer breakfasts, book clubs, cookery shows, TED and Engage Talks, detox challenges, marriage bootcamps, and skincare masterclasses than a UN diplomat on a mission for world peace.
The average woman is like a walking audio-visual encyclopedia. We know the benefits of avocado for the skin, how to feng shui a bedroom, how to raise emotionally intelligent toddlers, how to manifest wealth using moon water, and which herb to chew when your chakras are blocked.
But men? Men walk with ancestral knowledge. What their grandfather said in 1956 while seated on a three-legged stool remains gospel. What their father mumbled while fixing a rusty pipe in 1984 is the final word on plumbing, life, and all matters existential.
Men are not just conservative; they are ntiirika. Hard to translate, but it’s a word my people use to refer to the unteachable. In Swahili, we talk of ‘hawaambiwi.’ You cannot tell them anything.
Try giving your average man advice. “Babe, maybe you could try using the bypass instead of trying six shortcuts to beat traffic.”
Women thrive on learning new stuff. We send each other screenshots of books, online links, and testimonials from that one friend who tried intermittent fasting and now has the waistline of a pre-teen and skin like a ripe tomato. We create groups dedicated to parenting and meal prepping. If you want to know about vertical gardening in Nairobi, or the fastest way to deworm a toddler using pumpkin seeds, ask a woman.
Meanwhile, men are still applying Kiini macho from 1992, swearing by that one barber who understands their head shape and wearing vests that cling onto them by one determined but emotionally overwhelmed thread. Their idea of learning is being told, “that’s how men are.”
With some men, even God, in His divine patience, would need a PowerPoint and a live demonstration to get through to them. The Biblical Moses was an exceptional man. Can you imagine if that were a Kenyan man encountering a burning bush?
“Take off your shoes. This is holy ground.” God would say.
“What!? What’s the deal here?
But what concerns me is this culture of non-mentorship. Women are always mentoring each other. Whether it is on how to navigate a career, survive a toxic relationship, or make banana pancakes, we pass it on. Men? The mentorship chain broke somewhere between the end of Youth For Kanu and the rise of the internet.
We would still be sending each other messages by smoke signal were it not for the women who demanded he send good morning texts, emojis and photos. We would be stuck with phone booths, and the only invention of our time would be an unenthusiastic calculator.
Learning and unlearning are powerful. Learning is transformation. It is how we break generational trauma, bad habits, and that weird tendency to think slapping meat on a charcoal grill is the height of culinary achievement.
Dear men, we are halfway through 2025. It is time to start reading more, sharing and mentoring more than subtle fighting and competing. Listen to a podcast. Read a parenting blog. Enrol in a men's mentorship group. Watch a documentary that is not all about lions. Ask your barber how many more follicles you have left. Question things. Go through therapy, participate in trauma healing. Please.
Better yet, mentor someone. Tell the younger men in your circles that showing up emotionally is not weakness. That mental health is a thing. Watching your baby while your wife naps is not babysitting. It is parenting. Unlearning the wrong things your father told you is not betrayal. It is growth.
As for the ntiirika among you, we are sorry about your journey, but you have made your bed. It will be uncomfortable, to say the least, but you must lie on it. Your pride, or ego, are not worth the fall that comes with an unteachable attitude. But you are the head, the captain of your ship, or boma, and the buck stops with you. You build or destroy your castle. It remains your prerogative, your choice to learn, unlearn and relearn, or perish.
We shall keep learning, growing and forwarding you the links. Maybe one day, when you finally open them, you will know the secret of our longevity.