The other meaning of MCP :: Mmegi Online

FRANCISTOWN: My first encounter with the abbreviation MCP was in an English language class at college. Our English teacher, Paul Mitchell would find a boy and girl fighting over a chair and coolly suggest that the male should have ceded the chair lest he is accused of being an MCP.

"What is MCP?" We would ask the bald-headed Mitchell, our attention now turned towards him as he leaned on his table. Laughingly, while shaking his head, the sage would retrieve a chalk from the cupboard and write MCP on the blackboard. And then, without uttering a single word, he would write the phrase in full: Male Chauvinist Pig. Over time, we tried very hard not to be pigs by ceding our chairs to girls in situations where conflicts looked eminent.

Now there is another MCP that looks set to become a byword in Botswana and Africa. It has got nothing to do with pigs, though by connotation it could have and should have. Many men and women in Botswana are guilty of Multiple Concurrent Partnerships (MCP) though there is a concerted campaign against the practice.

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