A
very intelligent person ones said that women are angels and even when someone
breaks their wings, they simply continue to fly. They are flexible just like
that. Women are very important people in the society as they form a part of us.
Therefore, they should be treasured and honored for the great people they
really are. Personally, I do appreciate and give women the respect they
deserve. They carried all of us in their wombs for nine months, gave birth to
us through so much pain, breastfed us, put up with all our tantrums, changed
our nappies and diapers, kept us safe through thick and thin and more so gave
us the basic education a child needs. In short, mothers are the first teachers
that young children have to pass through. If you are a mother am sure you
already know that the journey is not that easy. It has its ups and downs.
Despite being wonderful people, there are various challenges that they go
through most of which can be avoided by having a society that is well informed on
the rights of women whether young or old.
I
understand that it is not easy to change traditions overnight. But for heaven’s
sake, for how long will the African people keep on using that phrase as an
excuse not to do away with bad practices such as Female Genital Mutilation,
Early marriages, Wife inheritance, Gender discrimination, breast ironing,
painful tattooing, removal of teeth and other bad practices? FGM for instance
is not even important; those who practice it do it because others did it: which is not a good reason to cause a lot of
pain in young women. Those who carry on FGM argue that they carry it out as a
way to control women’s sexuality by removal of the clitoris in order to ensure
that a girl preserves her virginity until marriage and to increase male sexual
pleasure. I don’t understand why male sexual pleasure should make a young girl
go through the knife. During the process of FGM, a girl can bleed to death or
even get complications during childbirth. Breast ironing is another challenge
whereby, breasts are pounded on with hard or heated objects in order to stop
their development or to disappear. Africans, though, they always try to correct what is not wrong and leave what
ought to be repaired unattended to.
Women
also suffer from poverty, hunger and homelessness. Sometime back, I was going
through a local newspaper and I couldn’t help but notice a woman from Turkana County
bury her own child in a shallow grave who had died of hunger. Women also tend
to be violated in instances such as rape and domestic violence. Is it so hard
for some men to keep their “goodies” intact and respect the dignity of a woman?
It’s even more disheartening when a man rapes his offspring! I only would hope
that the penalty of these sexual offences could be through castration similarly
to bulls. If only those who are so heartless could just think for a minute
about the trauma they are causing the women they rape! During these sexual harassments,
women may get pregnant or even contract sexually transmitted diseases such as
HIV/AIDS. Domestic violence is at its prevalence against women. I believe that
the moment a man raises his hand to hit a woman, then automatically he ceases
to be a man and becomes a “boy”. Men should avoid beating up their women and
instead treat them like the queens they are. This automatically affects the
relationship positively in that a woman also gives the man the respect he
deserves and conducts her duties without being forced to perform them.
Women
also face under-representation in political life. I have heard many women speak
of gender equality and to be honest, I like the way they base their ideas.
However, I have a problem with some of them because they tend to behave in a
manner that is not desirable. If they argue on gender equity, then they must go
through what the men go through in order to reach their peaks instead of
insisting that seats be left vacant specifically for women. When will they ever
know about the struggles in the real world? If women want to gain more positions in The
National Assembly for instance, they should prove their worth to the public.
Lastly,
I would love to acknowledge some of the women who have done so much for other
women and the country at large. I start with the late Wangari Maathai who beyond
all odds, helped in the Conservation of the Karura forest through the Greenbelt
Movement. It is clear what she saw while seated, most of us could not see it
while standing. The other is the First Lady Margaret Kenyatta who through her
Beyond Zero Campaign, has raised funds both in Kenya and around the world to
aid in the health problems of women and children around the country. Not to forget
our mothers, our hearts are filled with gratitude from A-Z.
