Chioma
struggled to sleep but her sub-consciousness disallowed her, she tried to
concentrate on anything but her beclouded sense did not help. The look on her
face suggests she wouldn’t mind going to the depth of the sea to find answers
to the barrage of questions that baffles her everytime.
Ensconced,
memories of her childhood flashes through her head, she remembered a memorable
day when her twin brother, Chukwuma was sitting calmly next to her, leaking the
bigger yoghurt dad had given to him. She recount: ‘’that day, I was bitten by
ant and I started to cry beside my twin brother. Our dad came out and carry Chukwuma
(my twin brother), giving him a loud perk as he mumble ‘my son, my pride’ to his
ears leaving me behind crying. I remember how horrible our dad answer made me
feel when our mummy call out at him to question his reason for ignoring me when
my crying showed that I needed a comforter, my dad had told my mum that Chioma
will soon leave the home but Chukwuma will carry his name till his grave. I
remember my mother was ready to scold my father for such despicability but was
silenced when my dad ask her what her surname used to be and what it is now. By
hindsight, I learnt my mother cried over my father’s selfish and inconsiderate
thinking, that she denied him sex for days until her consciousness told her she
might in no time loose him to skimpy, young and desperate ladies outside.
‘’Even
at age 9, I cannot do what my twin brother Chukwuma do nor can I do things the
way he do it. I still remember how really bad I felt that afternoon when I
received a terrible slap from my mother because I was playing outside our house
with only pant on. I felt greatly cheated not because the slap hit me well but
because my twin brother that had no clothing on was spared. To say I went crazy
that evening is to say the least: I was impatient to know what was wrong with
me as a person. I ask endlessly ‘’is being totally naked better than having
only pant on. I could have been more crazy only that the scolding came from our
mummy whom I have grown to trust and love more than our dad that hated me right
from the day I was born.
‘’At
a time, when am still in my teen, my life became one day, one trouble: trouble
from the house, trouble in school, in the society and everywhere. The trouble
on the school front was so monumental that I was negotiated out of study. I
still query hitherto, the insensitivity of my father when he ask me (the
brighter child) to drop out of school to allow him finance my brothers’
education. I was denied university education because of my brother and that
shapes my life till date- my philosophy, my prestige, my ego and most
regrettably, the calibre of men that ask me out. Just because I have vagina and
breast as against chukwuma’s penis and shapely biceps, my life had to be taken
for granted. I cannot fathom why I always get rebooked for every actions that my
twin brother would not even get a nudge for. It is uncultured for me to spit
whenever I feel like, I must not dip my hand into my nose to ease scratch, I
must not laugh too loud even when I needed too, I must learn how to talk in a
scintillating way, I must this, I must that, just me, why? Why me alone, why
not my brother too, aren’t we born the same way? The same day? With the same
desire for freedom and excellence, why should the society single my kind out? Why
must it suggest how people of my kind live their lives! Why won’t quality and
sagacity be the basis for societal relationships instead of gender?
Chioma
is 26 this year and the pressure of marriage on the home-front is at best
misleading. When she was 20, the father cannot stand her talk to a man in
public lest in seemingly private place. However, every relationship experience
she had had taught her that men only wants one thing: Sex and nothing more. How
is she to make a man love her beyond sex, she wondered! As she reason how to
muster courage to stand up and face the world that favours only men one
evening, she was again defeated by her own father threatening to send her out
if she wouldn’t bring husband. Ofcourse, the pressure on her to find husband is
not out of place, it doesn’t take logic to understand that women has a lot to
worry about in their twenties unlike men. A man of forty can marry a lady of
twenty, Infact, there is no limit to the age of men when it comes to marrying
but a woman beyond thirty will have a hard time getting husband. That is
because men dictates the tune!
Chioma
says aloud: ‘’what kind of world is this? Most men that ask me out do not have
the quality I desired yet I cannot approach my choice man for love, I would
most certainly be taken advantage of. The society Infact tag such a woman
shameless. Damn! Men seems to have exclusive right to everything. I mean
everything at all. What a patriarchal world!
Virtually
everything works against Chioma in a society of survival of the fittest: her
physicality is weak compared to chukwudi with broad chest. In marriage, she
bears a greater workload- she carries baby for nine months and nurse intensely for
three years. She must learn how to earn in-laws approval (which is a field suppose
study in the varsity too). She will have to learn how to say sorry to husband
even when she is the right one (if a woman caught the husband cheating on her,
people will admonish she forgive to save her ‘’unsafe’’ marriage but let a man
caught the wife, she will most likely not sleep that home night over). She must
meet cooking timetable for the family yet she has to work just as the husband
does to make ends meet. Husband and wife labours to build home but the society
consider it as a man’s property.
Chioma
again communicate with herself: ‘’am confident but confidence is not enough
whenever I walk across the street and the bulging, greedy and lustful eyes of
men ripped me off my cloth, ripped me naked and make greedy sex to me. However
confident I am, anytime I walk past a man I felt a nerve contractions that
often result in disruption or on worse days, to leg dragging- although I always
pretend as though am in control by swinging my waist. If a guy accost me for
love, the thought of eventual betrayal burdens me yet if a guy walk past me
without a nudge, my feminine hormones will want me check my face, breast and
buttocks if they weren’t attractive! But why does men had to influence
everything about me (woman)?
‘’My
dad once referred to my mum as empty to his friend one day as they both drink
and cheers. He had said precisely: ‘my wife used to be beautiful with
well-rounded breast and curvy hips but I have consumed everything better in her
body- I milk four kids from her and have eaten the most precious of her
womanhood. Now, I have to play my cards with some young and adorable women, my
wife has nowhere else to go.
Saddened,
Chioma wondered if one day his husband will say same thing about her in front
of his friend. She baffles with the effrontery of his father to cheat on her
mummy when he was actually the person that worn her out. She gnarl at the
height of injustice that admonish four wives to one man as obtainable in a
particular religion. She was mad by a religious injunction that says a woman
should veil their body from head to toe because men want to live. She was
weird! Really weird about the world that is absolutely disfavourable to the
female folks, the world that seeks to relegate women to a state of
sub-humanity.
Even
if Chioma had gone to school, gender issues still affects how jobs and
promotions got executed. But in the midst of these deadly inequalities, the world
still bows for a kind of woman: woman of substance who knows her onions and
thus cuts it well. Women who are aware of the nature’s bias against them but
vowed not be cowed by it rather armed thyself with sensibilities that will not
allow defeat. Women who are absolute, proud and ready to raise their standards.
You don’t have to feel let down by nature because even as you are, you can reach
any height- just decide to be one of a kind woman and start to challenge your
limit. You might not be able to change many things about gender inequality but
you can surely achieve great things (Nkonjo Iweala, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
Joyce Banda, Hillary Clinton, Opera Winfrey are clear testimonies). It is
possible to shift the world from that of physicality to that in which ideas and
intelligence win, so, break the limit!
Twitter: @PunditAfrica
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