Women, you can go back to cooking and childbearing now – your day’s over
What you need to know:
- There was the wonderful one with the Lebanese TV presenter, who shut off a man's mic when he started to become insulting – on her show!
- Iceland is now the most gender-balanced country in the world, or close, because women took action and stood up for what they know to be true – that everything collapses without us.
- The worth of a woman is not in her cooking skills, but in what she does to help her world.
- Ask any woman if she feels respected on a day-to-day basis when she is walking to the bus stop and gets harassed because some men feel entitled.
A man I know asked me the other day if I know how to make chapatis.
He wasn't asking because he wanted us to exchange recipes, or debate on whether dhania in chapatis is a good idea (it brings out a nice flavour, you see, as do carrots).
He was asking in a "but you're a woman" kind of way.
I wasn't sure how to answer.
It was the week of International Women's Day, you know, the day everyone remembers that women are important.
I did not want to be rude or presumptuous. Maybe he really did want to have a culinary conversation.
Posts were going up all over my Facebook — mostly about Wangari Maathai and the Beyond Zero marathon, in the wake of the international commemoration.
There were some really great female empowerment posts, the ones that make you warm inside and make you feel ready to conquer the man-soaked world of academia, politics, science and whatnot.
There was the wonderful one with the Lebanese TV presenter, who shut off a man's mic when he started to become insulting — on her show!
As soon as he started this spiel about how she was "just a woman", she said, "If there is going to be no mutual respect, there is no need for conversation". I paraphrase, but that was the basic gist. She switched off his mic. Like a boss.
And of course, there's the quote dredged up from 2007 by Drew G. Faust. “I’m not the woman president of Harvard. I’m the president of Harvard,” Faust famously said during a press conference after her appointment.
NOT JUST COOKING
There's the other picture of women in Iceland who went on strike almost 40 years ago. The country nearly fell apart. Iceland is now the most gender-balanced country in the world, or close, because women took action and stood up for what they know to be true — that everything collapses without us.
Maybe this guy asking me this question was feeling inspired by the wave of positive humanism around him. I doubt it.
We live in a world that celebrates something or the other for one day, and then quickly moves on to the next cause.
There are over 100 International Days that the UN recognises as days the world needs to commemorate, and we haven't even started on Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween...
As if sentiments like love need only be remembered for one day. The Kempinski isn't only open on Valentine's, you know.
Likewise, people celebrate women, but not often, or rather, not enough. More often than not, people are concerned about whether we can make chapatis.
The worth of a woman is not in her cooking skills, but in what she does to help her world.
While it's all well and good that we have days like that, it is clear that no one actually believes in the spirit of them.
It’s evident when, every time a woman is perceived to be on the wrong side of a man or irritating a man, she is told to "shut up" as she is "just a woman".
'MEN FEEL ENTITLED'
A woman's sexuality and/or childbearing tendencies are likely to be the next point of attack if an argument is not going her opponent's way, or rather, if someone uncouth lacks sense to see, as was evidenced by Oburu Odinga's comments about Fidel Odinga's first wife — at his funeral!
We still allow sexist comments to be broadcast on national television without too much comment, like when Governor Kabogo decided that women past a certain age should not run for political seats.
The examples are numerous; just ask any woman. Ask any woman if she feels respected on a day-to-day basis when she is walking to the bus stop and gets harassed because some men feel entitled.
Ask her if she cares about International Women's Day.
Ask her if the memes and cute pictures she posted actually made a difference the next day to anyone she knows who is not a woman.
Ask the women being stripped in the middle of town if there is any point to these days.
If atrocities against the female race are still happening and people are not being educated about them as they are quickly brushed under the carpet for the next, more interesting news story, then we don't need just one day of adulation. We need a lifetime.
Twitter: @AbigailArunga
