WOMEN ARE ANGELS…

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.