In response to a good friend's facebook post, the one below.
Someone said this: This generation is obsessed with proving that women can do all things that men do. We have shifted all our attention from what makes women unique and more powerful than men. If you remember growing up, when things went wrong at home, it is our mothers, or grannies who knelt down and prayed. They kept the family intact. Motherly love is the best, men suck at showing affection. We were created differently, it is a fact!
Our biology, style of thought, emotions prove that. Women were not created to do everything a man can do. Women were created to do everything that a man cannot do. Women are more powerful that men. A stupid title in politics is not what makes women strong, it is the fact that women are women.
Just a reminder, the meaning of imbokodo and itz origins. Imbokodo is a zulu word to mean a rock. It originated to show that women were the rocks and pillars of the society, they kept us spiritually uplifted, they gave us love and hope.. Wathinta umfazi, wathinta imbokodo. uzogcwala! Please maan, nto zakuthi, we need our women back! We need women who will keep us uplifted. Even when they become big CEOs in huge companies, we still need our emotional support and positive energy.
My response:
Well, where do I begin?
First of all, every old generation thinks that they are better than the next generations, that the next generations have it easier, such is the cycle of life.
Secondly, it's true biologically women and men are different and their bodies function differently. It's not that this generation is trying to prove women can do what men can (we already know that) but it's rather that women receive far less credit for what they do than their male counterparts. In fact men take credit for what women do, almost all the time. This is called Patriarchy.
I think that's what this generation is trying to address. Women can be good family builders but it's the babas who are crediting for "managing their families well" or "running their households". Now that is unfair.
The fact that males on average earn more than their female counterparts is a problem. The fact that women who DARE (I mean daring against what society: the church, school, their family etc. say) aspire to do what traditionally men have been doing, are vilified and called names; the fact that all women are expected to want to provide emotional support, be mothers, be nurturing etc. etc.; the fact that there's a one size fit all shoe of what it means to be a women (actually it's the men, ironically, who define what it means to be a woman) when man are and can be numerous things, is truly an injustice against women.
Thirdly, it's true, women are unique. However their uniqueness is not mutually exclusive from their ability to do what men have traditionally been doing. In fact they can do the very same things that man have been doing but in a different way (or in the same way for that matter) and there's nothing wrong with that.
Fourthly, now saying women are powerful is semantics because we know where the power resides. Who makes the decisions? Who decided whether women should or should not have abortion? Who decides how women should handle their bodies? Who decided when females should vote? Who decided when females should be allowed to go to school? Did females ever say they don't want to own property? Did females ever say they don't want to be presidents? If not, then who made that happen in society and in history?
"Women are more powerful that men." That could be true but the way society navigates that, is it reflective of that statement?
Fifthly talking about parenting as more of a female forte de-legitimises the good job that some single fathers have done. Yes the majority of us received good motherly love (personally I did not by the way, my stepfather shows more affection than my mother), but that does not mean that women are "emotional beings". We, all, are emotional beings, it's a fact.
Some women choose to show emotions more than others, and some men choose to show it less than others. This is also not an independent choice we are socialised that way. Society shuns men for showing emotion by labelling them weak, gay etc. etc. but women are encouraged to show emotions because it makes them humane, real and genuine.
Look at how children play, while boys play with cars and guns (associate with things like policing, i.e. protection, and driving, which disregard caring and emotion but encourage adrenaline and excitement, wonder, adventure and thinking about self) but females play with dolls and play house (associated with caring, nurturing, domestics etc. but discourages irresponsibility, risk taking, wonder, building and thinking about self). Who tellls children to play like this? Who buys them such toys? What if they bought girls cars and building toys, and boys dolls?
Thus men choose to be "macho" and all the mambo jambo they are fed about what it means to be a man (with many failing to produce it, thought) and females choose to be feminine and whatever that means. This means emotions, mostly is shown by females not because of any other reason but because of socialisation and man show less of it. (Didn't want to go this deep, sorry, but well ke?)
Uplift-ment, hope and love can be provided by males too, look at the priests, pastors, messiahs and prophets. Some female cannot biologically make babies (as some males cannot biologically reproduce) and that doesn't make them less of a woman. If a female is also biologically incapable of being a "cheerleader" should she commit suicide because she is not women enough?
Some women are good cheerers some are not, that's what we want society to understand and make peace with. Not that we are saying women should be treated like men, however we are saying women should be treated like equals to men. e.g. 5+7 = 10+2 but the LHS is unique to the RHS but both are equal. Hence we say the negotiation of equality may differ but not negating the fact that it exists.
Sixthly now the creation of women and men, I will not go there since there's already an assumption that females are a complement to men and not the other way round. i.e. that a man was created and then a woman and whatever was lacking from that man, was created in the woman. What if it was a woman created and then a man, then whatever she lacked was given to the man?
Finally. Labelling women as mbokodos (a strong rock, in Nguni languages) was a way to show that women can be strong, can be offensive beings (instead of how they were seen, as defensive beings) and can be one to initiate change (instead of living the consequences of men's decisions.) So "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo." was a campaign to empower women (who were, and some still are, disenfranchised).
We need to fight for women (not that women cannot fight for themselves, but in solidarity with them) to be what they want to be, not what we men want them to be. If that means doing what traditionally man do, so be it. We are not fighting for women to be men, that's impossible.
-SNLV kaJolinkomo
(25 Oct 2015)
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