Women Are So Much More!

Image: Pexels.

I have, for months now, been staying in my lane and avoiding some issues that can easily rile me up. I have been learning to bridle my tongue to avoid dishing out words I can't take back. But today, that will take a back seat! I'm literally going to war!

I am a feminist and I am ever ready to jump on all issues relating to women. I can go on and on about women's rights and what we deserve.

So it is fitting that I go on this rant.

I was in a bus heading to town when this lady in front of us tried to reverse. She reversed smoothly, albeit slowly, and went on her way. As we watched her disappear into the distance, another passenger started ranting about why women shouldn't drive. I wondered what he was about. 

He sounded so angry that people began to complain. The conversation in the bus was crazy. The aggrieved passenger was hell bent on proving why women shouldn't drive. 

All through, I was saying, 'Lord Jesus, help me get down jejely without insulting anybody'. 

I did! 

When I got home, I wanted to put the incident behind me. I almost succeeded until I read a Facebook post where a guy said he hated seeing women act like bosses when, in the end, they would all end in the kitchen. He thought he was funny when he typed the hashtag, #KitchenBoss. 

I went at it a bit with him and he kept going on about women picking up western cultures and not respecting men. I told him respect was earned in all cultures and a woman shouldn't have to respect a man just because of his penis.

At this point, I was still trying to be good and reign in my tongue. I went on to do my midday show and asked the listeners to describe a woman who was accomplished educationally, in her work and career but who couldn't cook. Out of the over 150 respondents, more than 120 said a woman who couldn't cook was a totally useless person and an incomplete woman, backing it up with statements like, 'It is the destiny of a woman to end up in the kitchen'. By this time, I wasn't pretending anymore! I was pissed the fuck up! I was angry and just about ready to spew venom!

I tried to put it out of my mind until my colleague, while discussing an issue, said a married woman was her husband's 'property'. I asked, 'Property?!' and he reiterated his statement. At that point, I knew I had reached my tether's end. I just couldn't stand it anymore!

This is 2014 for crying out loud and people still have the ideology that women are the inferior members of the human species. With all the campaign about equality, with all the manifestations that women can be and do so much more, men (and some women) still think we are nothing but beautiful bodies with little brain capacities!

Women are cracking codes in genetics, flying to space, becoming engineers, soldiers, doctors, prime ministers, presidents, bloggers, artists, I.C.T experts, pilots and men still think it is okay to call us properties?! We are taking charge and working in just about any field and yet, we still manage to balance family life. In spite of all these, silly arguments about what women should and shouldn't do still abound?!

I'm most disappointed that we are held to impossibly archaic standards in today's fast changing world! There are still things women can do on a general note that men cannot do and yet we still get to be discriminated against?! This is appalling!

Well, like I told the 'Facebooker', I will say this to all chauvinistic, patriarchal and misogynistic men out there. 'There are women who will be far more important in this world than you could ever be or hope to attain. You can either join the fast moving wagon of progressives or remain in your circle of ignorance'. Either way, you will not deter us.'

And to women, don't let no one tell you that you cannot aspire for more than the kitchen. Your multi-billion-celled brain was not created to just shuffle meal timetables for the month.

Women are so much more than that!