KNOW YOUR PLACE

This is in honour of women like me; women who do not know their place.

 

“Feminism and the pursuit of gender equality are destroying our women,” so went one of my conversations last week. I was discussing being a liberal thinker in a conservative society and being a feminist in a patriarchal country with a male friend of mine. He looked at me pitifully before saying “Nono you need to stop this, what you’re saying encroaches on culture, know your place”.

As I do whenever I get frustrated my eyes glazed over and I went into mild cardiac arrest, okay okay I’m exaggerating, but I did tell him that ‘my place’ is wherever I dang well choose. The thing about being born with the likelihood to grow breasts (obese men I’m not talking to you) is that it seems you are only allowed to exist in a space carved out for you by men. This may be why I am violently opposed to the notion that our bodies are purely for the enjoyment and leering looks of men. 

I’ve been reading since I was three years old and have had a natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge since I was born so I have picked up so many things in my 24 years of life that I would like to share with you (at least this week I asked). Women are controlled using stereotypes, cultural practices, generalisations and even subliminally through music. 

Gender roles

I remember growing up and having all sorts of dolls, teddy bears and clapping purple elephants to play with. It was all very girly but my dad had also built us a tree house in the yard and fully encouraged us to play in it, to climb trees to play in the mud and have a supremely well rounded childhood. I thank him for it because if it was okay for me to climb trees in my own back yard no one would ever be able to stop me from doing anything because it was a ‘guy’ thing.

-          Wash dishes

-          Cook

-          Clean

-          make the bed

-          Be meek and docile

These seem to be the commandments for women just so they can keep the peace. Man I’m not about some dang peace, I’m a hell raiser. If you look closely you may notice that I’m not a washrag or a hoover. I have younger sisters and every day I tell them to let men keep the peeing standing up and we can share everything else.

Workplace vibes

“Michelle is a good woman, not for sticking by Obama when he was a struggling law student but for allowing him to lead her because now she has gotten so far”. Someone tweeted this a few weeks ago and I dang near deactivated my account. If my success can only be validated by having a man to share it with then I would rather not have it…well you know what I mean. Since everyone else thinks women are these supernatural creatures who are to blame for all social ills I will toss another challenge their way; stop giving birth to men who perpetuate the thinking that a woman is only as good as the man who loves her by not breeding with their ignorant fathers. Besides I thought the apocalypse took all these men and women who spend all their lives constructing boxes to devalue us and everything we achieve. Have you ever experienced subliminal workplace harassment? I say subliminal because that’s what catcalls pass for these days. I have found a great way to counter it, now  I throw it right back at some of the men I meet in a professional capacity now so if you ever hear the whispered words “hear comes the madam” turn around or I may squeeze your bum before you get me. See me, I’m always one step ahead.

Women should always be sexually available to their men

Now this just gets my back up. Sex is for pleasure and procreation, to be available at ALL times means both of these get compromised. Unless you are dating a prostitute whose vocational crux is sexual availability then you have got no right to expect that of your woman. “But then he’ll leave me?” I can hear the women thinking, honey how can I put this; if a man is going to leave you because you are too busy filling your life with actual events that will improve you and ultimately your life together to cater to his err stiff demands then let him leave. And before he closes the door tell him your knees prefer being perpendicular to the ground and not parallel to it anyway.

Hit her so she knows who the boss is

Men who beat women are such an anomaly to me, because it is obviously a power thing, like rape. If I had the misfortune of attracting these kinds of men I would live in a cast and a crutch because I am always running my mouth off. Walk with me down memory lane as we reminisce on how Chris Brown beat Rihanna black and blue (probably for running off at the mouth). What intrigued me was what happened after that incident; girls, who have probably been living in boxes all their lives, came out to say they wouldn’t mind if Chris Brown had done the same thing to them as long as he touched them. Afterwards I kept thinking so this is what you meant when you sang Take You Down?! Man listen I believe in second chances for everything except abuse and infidelity. Oh and stupidity.

Video broads

Another way to keep women in their place is to continue depicting them as shallow, beauty-obsessed, booty-popping beings in hip hop videos. Soul videos are a little classier but even they show women laden with shopping bags and self-satisfied smiles strolling out of Cartier, Prada, Burberry and what have you funded by men who, apparently, are our only meal tickets. Strangely enough I listen to a lot of misogynistic rap but if you ever try to call me some derogatory word and expect me to light up like the sky on New Years Eve then honey you have another thing coming. I will light a fire cracker in your face and mumble about your mama.

As a woman who will one day raise warrior boys and girls I have no time to let things like this slide. Imagine if my children were to be okay with booty-popping or woman-slapping, no thanks if that is the society they have to live in then I will deliberately raise them the same way I was raised; to stand out, to know my place and acknowledge it only if it is in my best interests to do so. Some may say that my ideas make me seem unladylike; to them I say that I have always been too passionate to be a lady, too foulmouthed, too “but why?”, just too much to be contained in a box.

When I turned 21 years old and living in Durban my father smsed me something I will never forget and I remember it when people try to doormat me; “Do not go soft for the sake of appeasement”. Those words resonated and I haven’t, you shouldn’t either.

Anyhow I probably sound like a man-basher but I’m really not, I promise. My boyfriend will corroborate this story. As soon as he is out of the doghouse.