Women In Our World Today

Happy International Women's Day!!! Is this the umpteenth article you've seen on why our women are important and how they can change the world?

Well, this one is different, trust me.

Happy IWD again just in case you've not heard it a hundred times. Now you can say "Yesterday, people were just greeting me, at least hundred times!!!" or "Oga for these women o, do they remember International Men's Day sha?" Now I know we all saw the Whatsapp messages, the Instagram posts, the advertisements, the old TED Talks about feminists and why we should all be feminists (low-key, I'm probably the only one who remembered the TED Talks), the twitter threads, etc. Wait, did anyone see the Mac Advertisement where they opened with an audio clip from Chimamanda's talk? Anyway, I think we all get it. Yesterday was hectic and kind of overwhelming.

Well, today I wanted to talk about the orientation of the girl child and women in our society. Ok, so how is this is different from all that happened yesterday. Well, as some people would say, yesterday was the day when the world remembered the women and made a big fuzz about it but the problem is that the celebration or recognition usually ends at the end of the week. Today, I was watching this video where a man was interviewing his pregnant wife. He asked her what was one she enjoyed about being pregnant, she replied, "Well, people are just so much nicer, they ask you to sit, if you want food or water, or if you need anything?" Then she said, it's nice but wouldn't it be just nicer if that was how people treated others even if they were not pregnant. What I got from that was that people saw her as fragile or special just because she was pregnant. Now this may sound harsh and of course, we should pay special attention to people when they are in conditions like pregnancy but the problem is that what should be the standard level of treatment is given to people with special conditions and then "normal people" are treated below standard. If you notice, this applies to different aspects of life, not just women but because we are talking about women so...

What I notice on days like International Women's Day is two types of messages, the ones listing all the things that a woman does and indirectly telling people that they need to appreciate the women in their life and then we have the ones we share with our fellow women encouraging each other and really forming that communal bond or solidarity if you want to call it that. The part I want to focus on is the second part, the forming of a communal bond. In the talk I referred to at the beginning, Chimamanda talks about the orientation of the girl child. Something I've noticed too often is how society treats children from even childbirth. In Nigeria, we know from Africa Magic that some families still think that female children are inferior. What about the color segregation, pink for girls and blue for boys or even recommendation of future careers, girls aren't usually pilots or this job fits women. And I think we know what society thinks about a girl that does not like cooking, (Ah, where will she find a husband?) Until recently, we still had these boxes into which a girl had to fit. But in the last few decades, we have had incredible role models who did not follow "the rules", you know them, the people who we wanted to be when we grew up. Unfortunately, progress is still really slow, we still have embarrassingly biased ratios in our engineering classes, cases of sexual assault most times against women, frownings against girl child education, and gender-based discrimination in jobs and pays, just look at the US women's football club that played in the last Olympics. They won 13-0 ( and yes that's soccer, not American football) scoring more goals in one match than the men's team had scored since they started playing in the Olympics but they still got paid 37 percent of what the men's team got paid.

Now these are things that we see and hear every day and we as a society are beginning to frown at them but sometimes when you want something done right, you do it yourself and by that, I mean women have to wake up and get more involved in the process. Yes, governments have to change their policies, industries have to accept a female presence or dare I say leadership, men need to respect women and all that but we women have to contribute more because it's about us. So what should we do? What I want every woman to do after my long rant is not only strive to break the mold in their own lives but to help others, enlighten them. When you learn about an opportunity, share it with your fellow women, encourage and don't envy. You know something about boys, we don't tell them secrets because we know that they'll end up telling everybody in their friend group ( no offense guys, but it's most times true). So in the same way, share things with each other, competition is a waste of time especially if you are still going to face more from a gender-biased work or school environments like politics, engineering, or music. Another thing I've realized is that the box for a girl child is still very existent. When you have the opportunity of buying a girl a toy, don't automatically pick the doll or the sewing set, actually take time to think about what she likes before picking out the toy, even though this might seem irrelevant but if you are going to get something that the child will get accustomed to, it should not be got based on stereotypes. Don't jump on the Disney movie collection, she might just prefer Avengers, and she might even like both. I do. Don't tell them, it's a man's world. Let them know that there will be opposition but don't make them feel like they've lost before they've even started. When they want to be musicians, treat them like you would if they said they wanted to be doctors. Don't discourage, guide and pray. Another thing is outreach when you have an opportunity to mentor young women around you, don't shy away. Yes, everyone likes Oprah or Michelle but they can't see them every day. They can see you. And if you can change their world view and teach them how you did it then you should. Let them see that female success is not something that is associated with America or foreign women but is actually possible in their environment too, give them something and someone that they can relate with more intimately. Be approachable, in essence, be the big sis.

Whew, that was a lot. Don't mind me, I was listening to my Disney playlist when I wrote this.😉😉

Thanks for reading!

Have a lovely week and don't forget to inspire someone.

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images from iStock and google images

If you want to continue with the IWD fever, here are the links to some of what I referred to in the post.

Chimamanda's TED Talk

Aladdin Speechless (this are just for fun)

Frozen 2 Show Yourself (this is also for fun)

Interview with Sutton (you should skip to 1:00 - 1:10 or 4:20 - 4:40 or you could watch the entire video if you want)