In the wake of reports on
House of Reps approval of life imprisonment for any persons convicted of rape, yesterday
Tuesday March 5th 2012. I am reminded of many women who are already mentally imprisoned
seemingly living in ivory towers with lofty privileges but deep down are worn
out from having to force a smile complete with hair and makeup while their
tired feet bleed from walking on eggshells in their matrimonial home. While it
may sound easy to say report your spouse, turn him in and walk away from an
abusive relationship which may be psychological or physical with all forms of
hitting beating, slapping, including rape (yes, a woman who is married can be
raped by her husband). But in a society as difficult as ours where a woman may
need to work ten times as hard to be taken half as seriously it may seem like a
better option to just get married to whoever, stay married and oh! Yes! if the
need be “die dia!” Having said that I won’t forget to add
that deep within us all lies what it takes to succeed be rich and with the
right dose of self esteem, God help us all, we can have the dignity to die
trying.(to be continued...)
Pardon me for feeling I must comment on your stuff, but I must say, you are quite brilliant.
ReplyDeleteA few cousins have risked scorn and rejection by family and have walked away from abusive marriages. As much as I hail marriage for being the sanctity of society, I believe we must also acknowledge when the effectiveness of the old paradigms begin to recede, and embrace new approaches to things in order to evolve our species.
The old paradigms of marriage are dying, and this is because the rules they are based on (man as hunter/gatherer, woman as child-bearer/homemaker) are old, and can only be upheld as old stories. Women have tried to bring about meaningful change in the past through western feminism, but the most powerful ripples of feminism did not reach certain aspects of African culture, and even feminism is seen as a stroke of madness from the 70's.
Our women must keep trying to being about the change they intend to see in society. Men may never understand (for good reason), it's hard to wear someone else's shoes and walk comfortably in them. *wearily sighs*
Take heart.