A Sister’s Dilemma

Also published in DAILY TRUST

 As the world marks the International Women’s Day to among other things highlight the achievements of women around the world, my mind predictably considers the condition of women in my society. Like many others elsewhere, I would love to behold some outstanding achievements made by women in my society, so that I can equally show it off with all sense of pride.

Interestingly, by virtue of sharing the same geographical and socio-cultural environment amongst other commonalities with the women in question, I would hereafter make a reference to a hypothetical character of a woman as my sister to address the average woman’s predicament in my society.

It is unfortunately obvious that, my sister’s situation does hardly if at all inspire any excitement to celebrate about, because it is largely pitiable and indeed miserable. This is because she is overwhelmingly enmeshed in-between two major waves of contradictory extremes, which have literally torn her apart.

On one hand for instance, there are calls for her total “liberation” from religious and socio-cultural values and norms under the pretext of struggle for her right and equality with man in the society. While on the other, there are some purportedly religious calls, which simply seek to perpetuate her alienation and justify discrimination against her under the pretext of some largely misunderstood religious injunctions.

In the meantime there are some traditional practices and wrong beliefs, which are equally discriminatory and abusive against her and which, though only a few admit believing in it or practicing it, the reality confirms that they are widespread in the society anyway.

By the way, addressing this phenomenon adequately requires a holistic approach to my sister’s predicament in the society, which necessarily entails considering her natural peculiarities that in addition to emphasizing her equality with man in worthiness, they also define the nature of her priorities, endeavours and the areas where she and her man counterpart differ, which implies the imperative of having to complement each other in order to achieve perfect result in human civilization.

However, in my society and right from the beginning, it is obvious that a newborn female baby is not welcome with the same amount of excitement as in the case of a male baby. This relatively cold hence discriminatory feeling is amongst those persistent remnants of some pre-Islamic and pre-civilization eras’ beliefs and practices, which downgrade woman and consider her a possible source of shame as well as a liability throughout her lifetime.

Moreover, she is after all already a victim of emotional coldness, which stigmatizes any utterance or act showing emotional feelings between the loved ones, because it is mistakenly confused with child pampering, which allegedly leads to delinquency.

Anyway as she grows up, she is already earmarked for marriage, which though is not an issue per se, however having not been adequately educated, trained professionally or even sufficiently taken care of emotionally for that matter, she is effectively rendered a failure as a wife and mother let alone in other worthwhile endeavours she may need to undertake concurrently in order to achieve her God-given potential and contribute her quota in the general development of the society and indeed the humanity at large.

She is literally bundled and delivered to (in many cases) an unsuitable husband under whom she goes through all sorts of maltreatment and abuse; all of which she has to endure because the society erroneously assumes that, marriage is all about mutual endurance of each other instead of mutual enjoyment of happiness.

Incidentally, this assumption is completely wrong, because in reality nothing guarantees happiness better than marriage as long as the couple realizes their rights and obligations towards each other and act accordingly. And the rare inevitable misunderstandings that sometimes occur only strengthen it afterwards.

Anyway, having hardly if at all enjoyed adequate show of love from her family, my sister would hardly if at all get it as a wife either. The initial emotional exuberance and care, which her bridegroom shows to her in the early days of their marriage, would soon fade way because it was already out of mere sexual lust instead of true love in the first place.

Throughout her marital life, my sister endures a dictatorial husband, who erroneously assumes that being impolite and harsh to his wife is a symbol of his masculinity and sense of seriousness. For instance, he hardly consults her to address issues; instead he simply issues orders for implementation, period, like an army general of a sort.

Moreover, he basically maintains two contradictory personalities; one of a very cheerful and high-spirited person once he is outside home particularly in Majalisa i.e. joint, and the other one of a visibly depressed and stressed person once he is home. And he has an incredible skill in switching from one personality to another in a blink of an eye.

For instance, he instantly assumes a negative attitude once he comes back home, where he announces his arrival right from Soro by pretending to clear his throat quite loudly to her hearing. Then he begins pouring queries in what sounds like a police interrogation session with an accused person, until he finds any excuse no matter how silly to scold and even humiliate her. However, he would hardly commend her when he fails to find any fault or at least when she does the right thing.

Nevertheless, whenever he feels like getting rid of her, he goes ahead to divorce her after he must have exhausted her physical attractiveness and ruined her strategic potential thereby rendering her virtually too hopeless to undertake any worthwhile endeavour afterwards.

Moreover, the situation in her family home is not any better either because her family hardly if at all helps matters; instead they make her life even worse off. Likewise the society looks down at her as an undesirable element of a sort, being a divorcee. Consequently she is literally blackmailed and put under a huge pressure that renders her desperate to find any other suitor no matter how unsuitable to marry him hopefully she would escape from that familial pressure and societal stigma. Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago I addressed a closely related issue in this column under the title of “On Kano’s Proposed Marriage Reform” (Daily Trust, February 17, 2012).

I really sympathize with my dear sister and wonder if she really has any cause to celebrate the International Women’s Day. Nevertheless, I hope there will soon be an adequate reform and societal awareness that will bring an end to her dilemma.