I am sure you have heard this narrative. “We have ignored boy child we are concentrating on the girl and we have empowered her too much. That is why marriages do not last like they used to.”
Every time I hear this statement I wish I had more than two middle fingers because duck you!
Women empowerment is a fallacy. A distraction to keep us busy while patriarchy reigns.
You cannot give me what is rightfully mine then say you have empowered me. Education, food, making decisions that concern my body, are not gifts. It is my right. Someone somewhere decided I could not decide for myself. Then another one said now you can decide but to this extent and then they called it empowerment.
According to Google, women’s empowerment is the process of empowering women. It may be defined in several ways, including accepting women’s viewpoints or making an effort to seek them, raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.
Vitu kwa ground shows that all these are words put together that really say nothing about the experience of the African woman.
If you ask someone in the 30s-50s who is a strong woman, they will almost often mention their mothers or grandmothers. You will hear phrases like, she stayed with my father or grandfather all these years. She beat and chased her co-wife and remained in her home and held it together, she looked after her husband till he died despite the fact that he used to beat her like she was a thief.
She prayed and fasted for her children and her home for years. She worked in her shamba till the day before she died. She gave birth to all her children alone under a tree. She never spoke back to her husband. She only went until class two but she managed to scrape and build everything we have now. She was forcibly circumcised but never complained.
Sometimes I am tempted to correct them. I asked about a strong woman, not a suffering one. Yet we are the ‘empowered’ ones because one day someone said you can go to school but you must still do these chores and be a caregiver. You are a girl after all. Oh here is a sanitary pad, sorry it took us long to realise that periods are a normal body function, but you are unclean, the holy book says so.
Hey, do you feel empowered? Hold on, do get married unless you are a reject and cannot get a man. Have children. No you cannot abort, it is a sin. But we also cannot look after the child, why were you sleeping with the man? Oh, he raped you? Why were you wearing that dress?
Why do you have many children? You cannot use contraception, the Lord does not allow us to. And did you hear about divorce? God completely hates it. So stop provoking your husband and he will not beat you. We have laws that protect women, you just must be influential enough for people to care about your case.
Please remember at work, to keep your mouth shut. Yes, we allowed you to work but you distract men by being a woman, so they might touch you from time to time or fire you when you get pregnant. And while we are talking pregnancy, women are still dying during childbirth so you may not live to raise your child.
We have good news, you can now run for elected office, the future is female. You are a public figure so we can insult you online, it is actually called cyberbullying but you will trend so that counts for something. You must not shy away from politics, you must be ready to face the violence but do not be so hardened that you lose your femininity. Men do not vote for angry looking women.
Start a business, but have male backing. Financial institutions prefer that. Pay your own rent but do not mention that you are a single woman, the landlord will think you are a prostitute. Otherwise women today are so empowered.
The way I see it, it is not yet uhuru. There are really no gains. Violence against women is at an all-time high. That you see one or two women being brave enough to stand up, you do not see the mental and sometimes physical anguish. And the silent ones are in the millions.
