This information should be read, digested, re-gurgitated, swallowed again, re-digested and assimilated into the Cerebrum. (Uju Comfy Okorie)
I AM ANGRY! EXTREMELY ANGRY!!!
This is the very reason we have FEMINISTS – Some of you have decided to call us ANGRY WOMEN.
“Sandra’s husband wants to get married again” my mum said, plucking the oha leaves we would be using for soup.
“Ehnnn, for what?”
“Ona cho nwoke” – He is looking for a boy child.
Mind you Sandra already has THREE GIRLS!!!… The last child wasn’t up to a year when she took in again. Do you know she had serious complications and miscarried that child?
This is what the man said :
“Better to miscarry than give me another girl child”
I remember when Sandra gave birth to the last girl, my mum was the one to pass the message across and guess what this husband of hers did, HE SIGHED!
My mum always ready to use pidgin : Why you dey sigh? Na she put am dia?
Chai! I AM ANGRY!!!
In this 21st century?!
It’s the society. It’s ignorance. It’s stupidity. It’s patriarchy. It’s how women, everyday, are subjected to the background.
“I have told Sandra to pack her bag and leave. She has a job with the government. Leave and take your girls with you!!!”
“Do you know he now comes back very late at night?”
“Okwa ifu umu nwoke, ha di very stupid”
Leave, escape from betrayal! Sleep without asking myself any questions, without straining my ear at the slightest noise, waiting for a husband I share.
My mum said all these plucking away. I just sat down there, thinking.
Men have failed. That’s why we have ANGRY WOMEN!!!
“If Sandra likes she should take in again. If I were to be her, never. I’ll take my three girls and turn them into strong women in the society. If he wants to marry another wife. He should, but never would I risk my life in a bid to keep a man who has no respect for me” I said.
Her love for her children would sustain her. They would be her pillar. She owes those girls help and affection.
Gradually Sandra is breaking down. A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets herself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being.
And then you die…
It’s as though they’ve all been waiting. For that one who struggled with him to die. Who was there through it all to leave this world. I say this because plenty water do not pass under the bridge before you hear – I AM GETTING MARRIED AGAIN.
For me I ask ;
“How did he meet her?”
“Is it up to one year mummy?” “What about the Children?”
Often times the woman stays or never leaves his home and it’s only because of the children. But never the men.
How quick and easy; for them to get over her.
Because in the words of my mum, in pidgin language :
“After one year woman don gather courage to raise head up not to talk of to remarry?!”
And so…
This is the war for the girl child, Ucheoma, a wise woman dished this out :
…We would protect her fiercely. Never again would a fist be raised to blacken her eyes. Our eyes have been bruised for theirs to remain unharmed. We were the last generation of women to suffer abuse.
Oh Heavens, help us to teach her to leave when it gets violent; teach her to walk away when it gets manipulative.
May she be provoked to intellectual heights. May she read till she spews knowledge like her mother tongue.
Women are givers, we are taught. May she give, give genuinely, but not out of undue expectations nor out of naivety that she finds herself empty and bereft. May she give only to experience the lifting grace of liberality.
May she not be likened lesser than her male counterparts. May her genitals not be raison d’ être for mediocrity and passivity. May her gender not enslave her to lesser efforts at life and douse her zeal for greatness.
Grant her fortitude to weather the uncertainties of life; not to wilt in the face of conflict; Give to her a voice to speak up for the truths she holds dear, the truths that our hearts have been too paralysed to spill.
Give her eyes that shine like steel to wade off predators. Give her eyes warmth in the time of love.
Teach her to be kind, but may she learn that she does not hold cure to everyone’s ailment.
Oh do not give her more than she can handle. We know that we do not hold sway in all the affairs of life; we do not know how to stir away all tragedies, but help us create a safer world for her. A world that would call abusers to book rather than blame her for circumstances beyond her control.
Look upon her with favour. Suffer her to love herself first rather than seek abroad that which she can give herself .
Dear Heavens, bless the girl child.
Remember the sex of a child is determined by the man. You may want to do more research on that.
Love xoxo
Adriel©2015
December 23, 2015 at 10:45 pm
L. O. L… Problem ain’t with the man but the system. The society at large. When you talk of education, it’s for everyone. No gender needs it more than the other. Cos correct education would have meant that the couple wants a male-child (ain’t nothing wrong with that). All they have to do is attend family planning and be taught and guided in achieving that…
Well, until the society is being faced from the functional unit (The Family)… Things like this will keep happening and there will be no end to ANGRY WOMEN…
Nice story Adriel… ☺
December 24, 2015 at 1:05 pm
I agree with Blaze; majority of the reason for the existence of the Angry Women is lack of proper education. Until that is addressed a lot of inhumane treatment of women in the family setting will continue. However, I disagree with the statement that the sex of the child is determined by the father and not the mother on a technical level. Just as the cause of infertility is mutually caused by the couple so is the sex of the child determined mutually by the couple. It’s easy to look at it from the X and Y chromosomes aspect. But technically and at the molecular level, the state of the female reproductive tract and even her egg exhibit preference over either the X or Y spermatozoon from the male at different times based on multiple factors that are determined by the environment, the woman’s psychological status and so on. Also, there’s what we call capacitation of spermatozoa which occurs in the female reproductive tract, and this is selective based on each spermatozoon’s level of readiness (survival of the fittest: it’s kind of a competition among them hahahaha) Blaze can attest to these molecular events.
December 24, 2015 at 1:46 pm
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=949787828420217&id=100001670261383
December 27, 2015 at 7:15 am
Lmao… @Okechukwu.. Nice enlightenment right there. Had no idea the sex determination was that multifactorial. In the end it’s still survival of the fittest. And bottom line is, Education is the key and when started at the family level, only then do we begin to get the social development and emancipation we want.
March 12, 2016 at 8:07 am
This sex of a child issue is annoying to me seriously. I remember our neighbours; the woman had 4 girls, by then every night we used to hear the couple quarrelling and fighting almost every night. When she gave birth to the 5th girl, the man never visited her at the hospital nor paid the bills. And she still returned to that house. Finally she gave birth to a boy: the 6th issue and what annoyed me most was how all the women came to congratulate her. The CWO even wore their uniforms on the day of baptism. And that is the problem with our society, we should stop celebrating women who take slaps, blows and humiliation to keep a marriage because we make it seem okay for men to treat us like we are animals (2nd class citizens) and its our fault.
For a couple who are looking for a particular sex, the two should go for family planning and if it didn’t work, another option is to use IVF although thats quite expensive.
Another thing i would like to point out here is that in this our society, men do not pay attention to family planning. I remember during me marriage course classes, during the family planning classes, men rarely paid aattwntio and it gets me so freaking angry cos they are the ones who will say they need an heir tomorrow.
Sorry this turned into a post but im also an angry woman maybe angrier than you cos right now i’m in a battle with NYSC because of my gender
March 12, 2016 at 10:51 am
Wow! You’ve left me stunned. Quite a revelation. Everything you’ve said, I have experienced. I have witnessed. It’s our duty. We will fight.