I’ve heard enough men murmur and express disgruntled sentiments of feeling like being female is a free ride to a point that I’ve been forced to draw myself to the conclusion that this indeed, might be true.
Not that part.
The part where most men feel that way. From a man’s perspective I suppose it looks like this.
She’s daddy’s little girl, protected the most in the family by all the men no matter what age, man’s world and all that.
He wants to court you and tries to catch your attention through various love languages such as gifts, quality time, and affirmation, which ultimately amounts to dollars in his eyes, that he’s spending on you.
So in his head baby girl is winning all the way through marriage where she stands a chance to bring wealth and affluence to her family through matrimony (given she marries well). Post marriage sis can literally resign to the most infant of stages in retirement as she now becomes his responsibility, and basically becomes a housewife and stay-at-home-mom who waits for his pay check and never has to deal with work related stress. What a life – or shall I say what a free ride…
I can understand how such conclusions can easily be drawn looking in from the outside through the lens of opaque windows that make glitter look like gold.
It is perhaps important that the true story of the African girl child gets to be told, I’d have said heard, but that would assume people have the capacity to allow perspectives of others that they themselves do not hold to infiltrate not only their rock hard shells but down to their cores, and that just isn’t true.
Women are groomed from a very early age, and its made apparent from our infancy what our role is in life, and that’s ultimately to be of service to the man. The idea of service is a notion one can easily find to be rebuffing, particularly if its not a two-way street but just one big lavish road to go contrasted by a little dusty road to come back.
There’s a sentiment that is erred in Christianity about the Godliness in service that’s a hard pill to swallow, but then again, whoever who finds being a devout Christian to be easy is most likely lying to themselves. Are we not all sinners that are more than likely going to sin again? And again. And probably again and again.
From a young age, women are put in their place. In African culture, when it comes to traditional gender roles, age can truly be nothing but a number.
Just because momma birthed you first doesn’t mean much when a male child succeeds you which is just absolutely ridiculous when logic enters the room but there’s barely ever a space or a platform for such sentiments and thoughts to be shared because as woman, or as a girl child you are not to be vocal or to make it apparent that there’s a brain in you somewhere that’s arguably as competent if not more than your male counterpart, be it in the familial or matrimonial scenario.
Our beloved African culture is simply not wired or designed for a woman to be expressive or passionate, because its not only disrespectful to the man and the elders, but it snidely and supposedly indicates a lack of femininity on the woman’s part, let’s not forget that wearing trousers in the streets and in the relationship is a concept that came on boats, pun unintended. Chirungu chakauya nengarava!
the rigid almost monolithic traditional culture on gender identity informs a big part of women’s idea of themselves from such a young age, it almost feels like we start to get moulded and dictated to the script of what life is to be. Women from generations before truly had it easy, because you cannot miss something you do not know of. They were only limited to experience one reality which was the one they were living in.
A stark contrast to the modern young woman who grew up in a society that preached and taught equality for women and made it a right for the girlchild to go to school.
A stark contrast to the modern young woman who was raised and reared in an academic environment and society that encouraged her to see the value in herself beyond being a birthing machine and a sponge that absorbs everything and anything without challenging chauvinistic philosophies because how dare she use her God-given five senses to make true sense of the world to eventually put some cents together and make dollars.
I often find myself envious of women from the generations before us, particularly in the African culture. Its easy to turn a blind eye to color if you’ve lived in a monochromatic world for the entirety of your life. Our mothers came up in an age where they were told what to do, what to think and never really thought to question it.
Ignorance is bliss, you can not long for a reality you don’t know is possible or exists in other parts of the world. The conundrum for myself and fellow sisters of this modern age is, from the time we were enrolled into schools and brought up in the academic space we were taught that we are equals with men.
We were even made to believe in equality so much we debated about it in English classes and debate rooms, we passionately cried about it through extracurricular activities and expressive means such as Toastmasters speeches, spoken word pieces, music compositions, visual art, the list is endless. The boys were there too! And at that time not a single utterance was made in indication of a possible shift in perspective to ensue some years down the line.
So tell me, how is it fair that after having lived in such a world of endless possibilities, I’m suddenly expected to wilt my will and keep my once highly-held-sunlight-loving head in submission to the ground with no prospects of reaching the sky whatsoever. Its such an enormous disconnect and it breeds a sort of cognitive dissonance in one’s understanding of not only their identity, but the world and life in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve found myself pondering on whether my real purpose on this earth as a black woman is to be confused, angry and constantly in fight or flight mode.
We find ourselves confused as we look back on the changes that occur. From being moulded to be a a nurturer and wife from a young age, to finding ourselves in an academic environment that provides an alternative reality from what we’ve been in grooming for, only to do a complete 180 reverting back to the former and unlearning all that we were literally tried and tested for during all those years at school. Its almost as if, the moment you’re almost close to the finish line, someone moves the goal post.
The point of education is for one to attain knowledge so they can be enlightened and serve others as means of living (money) which should (in a perfect world) attain your independence and emancipation.
As women this is literally what we go to school for, to be self-sufficient and independent, we work very hard and endure doing subjects that sometimes don’t come naturally to us because we have that innate nature to be responsible enough to see it through, just so we can be emancipated, but society is quite utterly contradictory because the moment we achieve that, we become less desirable.
Its honestly quite vexing, as we become reduced to categories such as dateable/undatable, marriage type/spinsters and lots of other labels. Some of the factors that determine or conclude which category one falls in can be as ridiculous as, “too much freedom because she stays by herself”, “she fancies herself to be the man because she’s too self-sufficient”, “she doesn’t have a man yet she’s the fairest, something must be wrong with her” the list is endless.
Its almost as if to be deemed as a good, respectable female one must dim their light and stay inferior to the man, which is just truly a sad reality for us.
More so, we’re expected to constantly be “in the protection” of another man, if its not your father or brother’s then its your husband’s, and that’s how the hierarchy goes. From your father’s house to your husband’s house. Almost as if we just cannot be trusted to be by ourselves, and in our own company, lest some galivanting vagabond deflowers us reducing our market value, ultimately reducing a whole human being to a commodity.
Suppose you’re “lucky” enough to wed a man, which is considered to be an achievement because when you don’t marry at the right time or at all as a woman its considered to be an utter failure or witchcraft, you’re now under him (literally and figuratively), and it becomes not only the expectation but standard to dance to his tune.
You’re meant to be understanding of the man’s nature with its flaws. You become the frog, carrying him on your back to swim across the pond, and you have to forgive his nature no matter how many times he bites you because its not only about his stoic nature (even in holy matrimony) but also for the sake of the little polliwogs you both broke your backs to make but are somehow only at the front and centre of your mind and not his.
Even if its his predatory nature leaving scars on your back, it somehow paints a bad picture of you and not him, classic example of the victim inviting misfortune onto themselves and somehow deserving of the egregious and glaring mistreatment they receive.
Is the only time an African woman, truly and in every sense of the word, gets to be free, in the grave or is it also not acceptable for us to turn in our graves!
