THE AFRICAN LADY: A Discourse of the Typical Igbo Woman

 

“From the hills of Egypt, to the Cape of South Africa;

From river Nile, to the Gold coast,

Exists the mother of Africa.

She is a woman, an African lady.”

                                                …Shalom Akaelu.

            When men subdue women, they pride themselves in it, saying that women are the weaker sex while the men are strong. They even back it up with the Bible. But let us reason together, God Himself acknowledges women as the weaker sex, we know quite well, but the question is, who is now the weak sex? Definitely, the men. In our English grammar, adjectives have comparatives and superlatives. Thus, it is weak, weaker and weakest, not strong, weaker and weakest. This means that men are also weak, only that women are weaker. This false ideology make men treat women like rags and irrelevant beings in the society. This conceptualisation of Igbo women as unsubstantial elements has resulted in their varying hurtful experiences.

            At birth, she is frowned at by her father who expected a baby boy who will bear his name and inherit his property. She is subjected to circumcision, which is restricted to the male folk. This is because her family do not want her to be promiscuous, thus, cutting off the very essence of her sexual pleasure. She grows into a young girl and is looked upon with disdain, because she is “weak” and cannot do much. She grows into adolescence and finds her place in the kitchen. Even her mother says to her, “It is where we belong.” She grows up, living to please her father, to please her brothers, to please men.

            When she is barely fifteen, she is sent to a maazi’s house without her consent, because she is only a woman. To this big townsman, she will be the fourth wife, but her father says that it is the best for her. Her happiness and dignity is sold for some money, which her family receives on her behalf. Formal education becomes a day-dream as her family think less of her than her brothers. They believe that her brothers are to go to school and make the family name proud but that she needs no education as she will be married off to another man.

            In her husband’s home, she is taken as a punching bag, because she either did not prepare the dinner on time or that she did not respond swiftly to her husband’s call on bed. Before seventeen, she has a suckling child and another yet to be delivered. Her co-wives console her, saying that it was all the same for them. She complains to her mother but her mother explains that “home affairs are not talked about in the public square.” Children keep coming in quick succession and soon, she has eight children. She can’t afford to speak where her husband hosts his friends, neither can she be a part of the decision making process in her husband’s home because, she is only a woman.

            Amidst all these, a traditional Igbo woman has her flaws. She can be inpatient, a nag and a jealous woman. But the question now is, isn’t it this discrimination that makes her bad? Well, I’m just thinking aloud.