Playing Our Positions; A Woman's Role

In a third world county deeply rooted in culture as nourishment, where we carry our culture on the satchel on our neck the way a freshly harvested tuber of yam carries humus sand. We see culture as what differentiates us from the white man. It does not necessarily make us better because deep inside, we envy them, we envy their progress, their precision in behavior and hygiene, the colour of their skin and even their hair. But we, because of culture, we feel we stand higher than them in the hierarchy of morals. And we revel in it. We revel when they come to our festivals and as a result, we put on more of a show. Our masquerades flog harder. Our women move with more vibrancy. To show we take culture more seriously than them, and to rub it in their faces, that they have no culture to call theirs.

The same culture we revere has left us behind the rest of the world in the usual fashion. We have witnessed struggles for human rights over the centuries. We have witnessed the fight for African Americans who were looked on as less than human by the whites and also the homosexuals who also demand to be seen and treated as normal lovers. Africa has always been quick to take sides in these matters. As a continent that is popular for having leaders who happily deprive people of rights, we ignore female rights in our society.

The role of women in the world has always been one-dimensional. The men have always been the brutes in a world that survives on darwinism, even within the human species. The men who have assigned upon themselves the responsibility to carry the home and society on their shoulders have also allocated the duty of home keeping to the women. As a result, over the millennia, a woman or a female has always been looked down upon if she dares step outside the kitchen. A woman is always asked to play her position, a position which is procreation and servility to the man.
 

A woman in our society cannot aspire to achieve her goals if they are too ambitious. We teach them to dream in bits, because the ultimate aim for her existence is to find a man to please. So we suppress their subconscious of a genius that might just exist in there because our culture has taught us to do so. We ask them to beautify themselves and not to worry, except trying to find the latest hair attachment, jewellery and complexion, we ask them to desperately hold on to their youth instead of aging gracefully because we believe, in a woman's youth lies her beauty. While we decide in selfish interest, the destination of their lives. We treat them as sex objects in the music videos, teaching the younger generation the average female is expendable and can be controlled with a wad of cash.
 

The trick to keeping a woman down is to continuously lower and plow her self esteem, to make her believe she cannot be more than what she has been stereotyped to be. And as she believes it, she becomes more complacent, more emotionally insecure with the belief she is replaceable and with the thought of being replaced looming over her, she becomes reckless and unstable. The best compliment that can be given to a woman is that she is "independent". Independence, a word that is imperative to each individual, that is essential for survival. We draw breath independently, we live independently and we die as we came, independently. The word labels an average woman as one that cannot stand alone, that needs the support of another to survive. The ability to become self sufficient becomes a compliment.
 

The educated men among us are no better than the illiterates. I believe school isn't tantamount to intelligence, yes, you can have a degree and still be primitive. The "intellectuals" relax in their comforts and hide behind aphorisms like "It is a man's world" and "a woman's education ends in the kitchen" out of many. Forgetting that over a century and a half ago, it was illegal for them to read. And then a century ago, it was a privilege for them to be educated. But still, they speak without thought, forgetting their roots and limiting their wives and daughters to what tradition has claimed is right.
 

It is in the average church we have words like "virtuous" and "submissive" being thrown around. It is belabored in the average church that a virtuous woman must be patient with her husband for a position in heaven. So she plays her position, while a husband who bathes in hypocrisy and brushes his teeth with worldly excesses pummels his wife with one hand. And holds his bible with the other, a bible in which he quotes total submission as an integral action for heaven. He claims to "own" his wife. As Toubob owned niggers.
 

In the Great Gatsby, a quote caught my eye "I am glad she's a girl and I hope she'll be a fool-- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool". A quote, which as sad as it is represents the view of women in society. Objects. I do not want to give birth to a daughter who must be a fool before she is accepted into society simply because she is female. I do not think God created us in different genders so some would be slaves to others. It is high time equality is effected. To achieve an ideal world where all hands would be on deck. Equality is the utopia of modern day existence. But the funny thing about equality is ; everyone is only equal when they're dead.