SPEAK OUT! LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD

SPEAK OUT! LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD

Midwife:  Mr. Chibuzo your wife has finally put to bed after 20 hours in labor. The mother and child are doing well.

Mr. Chibuzo: What did she have?

Midwife: A girl, the child is healthy and weighs about 8lbs.

Mr. Chibuzo: Another girl?

Midwife: Yes, a girl!

Mr. Chibuzo: Well, they need to get comfortable in this hospital because neither of them is coming to my house. 

Midwife: Sir, what do you mean?

Mr. Chibuzo: (sneer, anger, and disgust written all over him) I mean what I am said, this woman has refused to produce me a male child. Six girls! Six girls!! What a waste, useless woman, I don’t want her back in my home.  The hospital can have her.  Let her work here until she pays her hospital bill. I am leaving.

This dialogue, although fictional is far too common in many non-western cultures. Perhaps a father would not outrightly forsake his wife and daughter in the hospital in the developed countries, these countries also have their fair share of gender inequality and discrimination. So, what is it about the woman that has subjected her to so much subjugation, disrespect, and abuse?  Why has the woman been treated so unjustly?

In Africa, if you’re not married by the age of 30, they say something is wrong with you. In the west, even if you and a male have identical resumes and have the same job, the woman makes sixty-two cents to every dollar the man makes.  Let’s not even talk about professional sports and all, because there the wage barrier is so wide you need a bridge to get across it.

So, what has gotten us here? How did we get here? Some believe that from the story of creation, women were created as inferior to men. But those who claim this religious belief have no concept of the Imago Dei because Genesis 1: 26-27 expresses how we were all created in the image of God (male and female). Society or culture, however, has decided on the exploration of one group over another.  The weak, lording it over the strong, changing the rules to fit them and advance their cause. What is in these double XX chromosomes that people tend to disregard?

Let’s see, show me something a man can do that a woman cannot do and outdo him? Is it sports? Military service? Government? Law? Police force? Leadership? Mention anything, there is a woman who has done it and then some, like raising children by herself, making sure everyone is squared away at home and in school while doing other things.  The second shift is almost the norm for most women. They come back from their day-jobs and change into their night-jobs taking care of the kids, the husband, and the household. If you ask me, this looks like strength, super-powers to me.

I’ve been told there are men who can’t even serve themselves when the wife isn’t home. Then what kind of head-of-household are you?

Listen, whatever your opinion is about women, they do more for us than we can ever thank them for and it should not be so. Women need their financial freedom as well as the next guy, they need to live their lives on their own terms, married, single, widowed, whatever status she wants, she needs tobe loved, appreciated, and respected not objectified and harassed. She deserves love and respect, nothing else, so if you have a woman in your life, thank her. Never let a day go by without expressing your gratitude.

Dear, woman hear me, break the glass, smash the ceiling, break barriers, be a beast, be a monster, be unstoppable, never ever stop being a bad-ass. You’ve got it, you’ve got this. So, let’s go shatter all labels: “Female, weak, woman, Jezebels, inferior, Delilah, evil, weaker sex, damsel, needs saving, needs to be seen, not heard, your place is in the kitchen, your place is in the home, you have no place here when men are talking you should not be talking, and on and on and on.” So, when they say you can’t, say watch me. Don’t let anyone tell you you cannot because we can and we deserve a place at the table and if that doesn’t work, then make your own table and choose who gets to sit with you.  

If you are female and have accomplished anything in your life, you’ve probably heard one of these before so let’s put it this way; let me speak out, and speak loudly, and unequivocally. Women are strong, they are warriors, let’s start by the primary reason we have the title “woman” we go through pregnancy and birth new life.  Your strength is unprecedented. You go without so your offsprings can have something.  You are loved, you are honoured, you are wonderful. 

Yours,

L. Manya