QUEST AHEAD FOR MODERN AFRICAN WOMAN
Author: Elphas Bengo

When we say that we are standing up to fight for gender equality, it is sure that we are called to a rebirth of our African communities.

We are asked to reconstruct our traditional social systems which were formed along traditional and gender lines, and to intervene the leisured life of a traditional man whose ‘REMARKABLE?society should be defeated by modern women ideals that are varied assortments of incompatible elements of information technology, diplomacy, modern evils progress and industrialism.

Yes! It is a fact that modern women rights activists seek to change the simplistic life of men, to destroy the romantics of the past, cultured old women and dictatorial man.

Upon this form of gender aggression two types of women appear to take their different stand.

On one side there is this traditional African woman who is prepared to defend her notion on traditional taboos- a notion that culture is not simply a practice, but a practice that must be constantly defended. This woman affirms the value of traditions and what it used to mean to her forefathers. To her tradition is a continuation of society which goes way back to the old social systems and that there is nothing any woman could do to change that even if she had wanted to do so.

You see, according to this traditional woman, all women is just a fair damsels who should live to be married so that they can own that small room called kitchen, and to be seen in the public only when asked so by their husbands. Thus instead of raising her voice to this unfair treat a woman should in fact be thankful to the generosity shown o her by that man who has accepted to live with her in his house with a loving heart to all extent and with a whip if necessary.

To her, fair treatment is an actuality to which her- the inferior- should not violate the rules of the man and his conditions. In turn she hopes to be accorded a good treatment of loyalty, devotion, security and love. And this inferior creature has to accept her husbands ways in order to be treated with love and affection, or else decide to be an opposition and prove to be deserving of the whips and slaps from her loving husband who believes he has been pushed beyond the limits of patients.

Now this is where the other woman disagrees.
First of all, to her, being a modern woman means that she is no inferior character and thus she will not accept the saying that her place is in the kitchen. This modern woman does not believe in the traditional cultural ties and to some extent she has proved to fair off well without them. The modern African woman has even been able to argue the idea that there is a man who can claim to know what women really want. This is because she still observes men treating women with some kind of privileged doctrines. She has still found herself called upon to do most tiresome house chores without help from her husband, cooking food, brushing her husbands shoes in short doing all that is at home to be done.

Of course traditional women used to do this, but this is because old fashioned men found women to exist for their own sake- a modern woman argues-, she thus fears that her accepting stand in this house duties will mean that men will still view her as a fair damsel whose basic and material needs are love, dinners, fancy clothing, musical boxes, adventure trips, perfumes and perfumed handkerchiefs.

How has it all come to change? How is it that modern women do not see these things as great privileges to value anymore?

The answer lies on the ignorant nature of men in the issue of gender and equality. For centuries, African women have been denied to pursue their desired lives by laid down social, political and theological systems. Since contrary to the belief that these systems were meant to encourage harmony in the family, it has become to be seen that these systems were meant to defend worn out cultures of issues like gender inequalities, through praising the virtue of a concept upon which male dominance was rested.

It was hard for a modern woman to survive in this, and so because she could not bear what she wants from within the traditional system and life she had no choice but to bear it from without. A choice that has seen her rising top above different fields, participating in politics of her nation, in science and in technology alike.

In nature course thus, her modern self is observed in the way things are organized in her house: she not only takes orders , but has learnt to also give them. She is no longer that inferior creature who would be whipped and do nothing about it, she has learnt to fight back.

The modern African woman has come to understand that that in order to be heard then she has to learn to react to all matters she feels are unfair to her personal development as a modern woman with rights.

But even after all this has been done and agreed with, the life of a modern woman is difficult to analyze, even to herself.

Supplied with all tools of modern life of affliction and pleasure, she has the heavy task of giving away her old woman nature and to cease thinking and acting like a simple woman. What she must now learn are the tough things not in life but in the modern world. Tough things like self-independence, aggression, politics, humility, honesty, bravery and more.

With these in her hands, she thus hopes to make the world understand that she still lives in a social and political system that has not given women the treatment they deserve in their private capability and merit. That the current political and social system has not given each woman her fair share for it has still remained to preserve men not just the largest share but the whole of the profit: and that this is what she is aiming at. She will thus no longer be pulled in by easy employment privileges given to her not because she deserves it but because the society thinks she is a weakling who can count nothing on world debate and decision-making. She must say no to this.

She has to make the world understand that if men and women are to exist happily in her modern world, then every effort in and out of a system must be distributed equally to the two sexes. She will thus call on society to trust her in many hands of authority.

Here she will have now fought against all forms of gender tyranny and hope that like many other homely issues she has come to do away with, the existing gender deprivation will soon come to pass, and that she will in the end enjoy the pleasant and fruitful conditions under which she will be able to work herself to her dreams.

She will have accepted the bitter truth that she has no other place to fight for her dreams but in this long male dominated world, and that there is no way she can go back to her old traditional life to be the Mrs. Housekeeper as they old saying goes. In her modern ways she has to make it or lose it, she has no other choice, because even if she had another choice , the traditional woman does not like her, she wont be ? African?after all!

The world will have suddenly dawned on her. That she will still need to fight harder in order to be who she wants to be. She should no just go out there carrying placards with the words GIVE US EQUAL RIGHTS written on them, it don’t work that way anymore, in act she will have to make the world understand and like her new ways. She should not take it for granted that the world understand what equal chances and rights are all about she has to open their eyes on this.

In our modern world that is filled with different social settings, women have sought on men to count on them in many hands of authority. The pretext for this vary widely in our social upbringing, in the Islamic world, gender freedom in openly dismissed by a set of Islamic disciplines given from ages to ages, the same thing applies to the trsditional Africa.

But all this will come to pass if she will prove to the world that she can perform equally as men do in various social and political systems.

The modern African woman must thus have that reasonable faith that the flame of her liberty has been lit , and it will keep burning. In that faith and hope, she hopes to see that flame burn with renewed brightness. She can now face the future and whatever it shall bring to her with serenity. The changes she shall make for future women will be more important than her present individual interests, they shall not die when she dies, or depart when she departs.

She thus has to continue speaking strongly for women against discrimination and gender inequality and act as a defendant of many desperate women who have given up in fighting for their rights.

The modern African woman should bite the truth of being wrong on her pursuits for liberty and defend herself if necessary by acting as she believes she has got to in order to release herself from formerly upheld values that were mostly given to men.

But having a chance to these values will not mean that she has to stop there, what she will do with them is what shall forever haunt her and the future women of modern world. So long as her quest for equality has been remarked, to even few convinced traditional women, then she will have done all she can do.

She will have in fact fulfilled her task as a modern woman in this modern world. For if she manages to instill that spirit that saw her rise above gender discrimination then no matter what happens to the world and society her revolutionary spirit will live on and in fullness of time , this spirit will flourish a new among many other women who like her, will carry this spirit to the future world.

Much more than she knows perhaps, depends on her aggression, intelligence and fairness in all stormy demands of a modern world.

But from where she has come from, it is sure that she will not fail. The growth of gender freedom will forever sprout in to all corners of the earth and to all disciplines of the society. What she needs now is to pray for the success at this phase of gender history on which she has set the first foot and bound to set another and another. A momentous significance not for women alone, but for the whole world.

ENDS.






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The writer is a freelance writer/poet/Broadcast Journalist based in Kenya.

For articles and poems on african women politics and development contact the author at ellyphaz@hotmail.com

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