I get all aswoon in our perennial gridlock, which of course, may have become a phobia for me. As I got cut up in it one good evening and couldn’t deal with its nettlesome taunt, I alighted from our car and loathly walked into a shop to get a cold drink, but the snag was, it took the shop owner, a man of about fifty close to a minute to realise that someone was actually in the shop. He was so engrossed with what he was ogling at that it took a sharp clap of my hands to drag him back to reality.
What was he doing? You might want to know. One of our famous Nigerian pop music was on air. A young girl was vigorously wiggling her near naked butt and breasts and shamelessly displaying her wares with reckless abandon. It was a show of shame. The middle aged shop owner was entranced. He was practically drooling. I noticed that his mouth was agape, his left hand was in his crouch and his tongue moved gently in his mouth. The sharp sound made by my clap startled him and he yelled furiously at me.
“What is it, why will you barge into my shop like that with such noise, are you mad?”
“I’m not sir, I’m sorry for startling you”. I answered gently. “I’ve been here for a while and I’ve been saying hello but your attention was on the screen. I decided to clap to draw your attention”.
“What do you mean by that? Yes, I was listening to an important news, yes, the pastor was preaching…”
I directed my gaze to the television. The musical performance was just coming to an end. My gaze attracted his and then he realised that I knew what he was doing and his heckles went up.”Get out of this place, I don’t have what you came for.” He growled harshly at me.
“But I’ve not said what I want yet.”
“Just get out. Stupid woman.”
I quickly retreated before he gets physical.
I felt ashamed. The little girl he was drooling over would be about his daughter’s age and most definitely, he will not want to see his daughter in such an awkward appearance. Yet, he would gladly ogle and even masturbate by just watching his daughter’s age mate displaying her nudity indecently. What a shame!
It is said, “Madmen and doofuses are good to be in a town but the knot is, which family will love to produce such?”
Womanhood is a treasure most precious to behold, a pearl of great price and the heart of every nation. Disrespecting and molesting her physically or in our lecherous thoughts will be the biggest mistake of man.
She was given the power to create alongside the Great Spirit. She is a jeweled emporium of values and morals. She nurtures, transforms and gives life.
We have a nation today because of the woman. There won’t have been a world today if God had exempted the female spirit called “Woman” from creation. It would have been, most definitely, a meaningless world.
Every woman should be accorded her due respect. She shouldn’t be seen or treated as a plaything or an underling. She should not be rubbished by word, acts or deeds; she should be respected in all ramifications.
It is an empirical truth that any nation that subjugates the female gender finds it hard to develop. The formation of life takes place in a woman’s body. The active spirits in her evolve strategies and processes that makes the blood to develop to embryo then to foetus and then to a human being-such active force, such creative potential in her is a divine gift meant to develop the human race also. The female gender is the only active spirit empowered to participate in the creative process. She is deserving of honour and respect.
The heart of every woman hankers for respect and honour, but most are faced with the daunting challenges of poverty and deprivation.
Educating the girl-child
The truth is, in all the talk on educating the girl child, poverty is the major problem debilitating the human brain and making reasonable thinking almost impossible. I do not think that parents don’t really like sending their girl children to school. I do not want to agree that parents truly love giving out their female children early into marriage. Believe me, this lack of education and early marriage thing is common mostly among the poor. Statistically,
70% of uneducated girl children originate from poor homes; 5% are attributable to religion/culture, another 5% are the children of some wealthy men who only wishes to gallivant and squander their parent’s wealth. The remaining 20% are those who do not have the head to understand the conventional teaching, but are creative with their hands and understands only things in that direction.
Poverty is as it is, taking the lead in inhibiting education for the girl child in Nigeria, Africa and in some other nations of the world.
Given the nature of the traditions of some nations, bride price has already placed the girl child from a poor home in a disadvantaged position. Her parents, mostly the father grooms her for a potential suitor who will pay good money, at least for him to start a little business and carter for the ‘boy child’. With the boy child, money is expended, but with the girl child, as tradition will have it, money is expected.
So, in trying to educate the girl child, government should do their best in eradicating poverty or bring it down to a minimal percentage. Making primary and secondary education free, is but a step, and bringing poverty to its lowest level or eradicating it, if possible is the most important step, because as the girl child goes to school, her father sees in her a potential source of livelihood.
Poverty is also the cause of accepting demeaning and humiliating jobs.
Sometime ago, I asked a female dancer why she was almost naked in a musical video. Her unabashed reply filled me with pity and shame. She said, “Ah, na that one dey bring better money. My own na make I collect better money, if they wont make I necked dance, I go necked. No body dey help me, na me dey help myself. This body, na the only thing wey I get. I dey use am to get watin I want”.
Well, I don’t know how truthful her statement is, but, I appeal to our musicians not to continue to debase womanhood. I know they respect their mothers, sisters and wives; they should extend the same to womanhood in general. They should stop this naked butt and boob thing and pay their dancers well enough for the job they do. Have you not noticed that in these musical videos, the men get dressed up properly, but the ladies are meant to expose and ridicule the pride of their womanhood. I wonder!
Defining womanhood
What does it mean to be a woman? Is womanhood defined by our breasts and butts upon which society is so fixated? Womanhood needs to be redefined by the society. If we do not redefine womanhood, the value we place on ourselves as women will be completely eroded. We must uphold the values of femaleness which cannot be solely defined by our female looks – our breasts, curves and butts.
We need a new definition of womanhood that includes all aspects of being human, not just the physical attributes of the female or her ability to create life.
In the course of my work, I have had cause to pose questions to a couple of men, prodding them to explore the concept of gender. I ask them to consider that our biological sex is only a small part of our gender and identity. But this can be a hard lesson for most men to understand, particularly when contemplating the woman. The most common visuals of the woman in our society focuses on her body – big, bouncy breasts and butts. But a woman has to be more than her most observable body parts or that which makes her physically able to be a mother.
My mother once said to me that a girl, who sacrifices self respect and worth for popularity or money, debases womanhood. But then again a musician once sang that “Personality no matter at all; all I want is cash and fun”. I hope I quoted him correctly, but that’s about what he meant. These are two contrasting views in different times, but the truth still remains that womanhood deserves the greatest respect.
Poverty is also responsible in making many a young girl get pregnant outside wedlock for the rich and the famous, married or unmarried, just to be in constant contact with, not necessarily the man, but with money. It’s clear; no rich man will abandon his child to suffer or refuse to carter for the mother of his child. It is just a survival instinct, not really true love. The painful irony in it is that some get pregnant, some get AIDS and some lose their wombs in this line of business.
Prostitution is booming today because of poverty. I do not think that any lady/girl is comfortable with reckless thumping every now and then, no, not all. But due to the fact that money is earned at the end of the day for survival, they close their eyes to the ride, the pain and manage the shame.
Prostitution can’t be stopped by pursuing the girls off the roads or by arresting them. It can be reduced to a reasonable extent if poverty is dealt with decisively.
Some of them prostitute their bodies just to carter for their families and you cannot stop such girls unless you provide other means of livelihood for them.
I remembered some time ago in my native home- Amukwe Abba in Nwangele LGA, immorality and prostitution reared its ugly head into our rural communal life. The elders were alarmed by the ugly trend and decided to take a decisive step against it. My late dear father was one of the people who made frantic effort to stymie the gradual erosion of morality and female value in my land. He and the other elders appealed to the conscience of the girls and asked them to mention what they wish to do and they would be provided with the means to do them, just to put a stop to their wanton acts. The young ladies complied and they were graciously provided with all that they asked for. However, a few who refused to change and continued in their evil ways were banished from my place till date. This action by the elders put the fear of man and God in the mind of the younger ones.
Poverty and prostitution
Prostitution became an institution because of poverty. If you really wish to stop a girl from engaging in a bad trade, provide her with a better one and see if she will not change.
Our government can begin to change all these by providing welfare for the less privilege girl child who has concluded her secondary education, it will be more like a Girl-Child Support Programme where she will be paid stipend monthly for her personal care just to save her from these humiliating situation and for womanhood to be respected and Honoured.
In the end, I pose the question to all of you: What does being a woman mean to you? I know that it isn’t about femininity, and it certainly isn’t limited to biology.
Women act as the moral compass and a sounding board for their spouses, friends and family. We stand up for what’s right. We make men a worthy member of the society. Why do we do this? It is not only because we have the right biological parts. Nope, I don’t think so. We are so much more than the sum of our parts. We are endowed with all the necessary sensibilities and potentials.
Ada Cummings