Why won’t you ask about my promotion?

Why don’t we start by celebrating job promotions as much as we celebrate weddings, engagements and baby showers? We can also stop putting emphasis on dating with purpose. You know, where women are told not to date without the intention of marriage. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Even as we pursued our various passions and reached for the skies, we always had it at the back of our minds that a woman can be successful, but her success can only be validated by marriage or at least motherhood.
  • Ask any single Kenyan woman on the other side of 30 what she dreads most about parties and extended family gatherings and she will tell you about the incessant queries she gets about her love life.
  • Anyway, why do we put so much value on something that a woman only has partial control over – a lovely man getting down on his knee – rather than the stuff that she actually has full control over like a progressive career?

What does today’s woman want? This question was thrown to us, a group of young women, at an women-only forum recently. Turns out that today’s woman wants many things – she wants recognition, respect, career success … but most importantly, before all these, the greatest want most of the women present had, to my disappointment, was marriage.

Now, marriage is a great thing to have, but surely it shouldn’t be a woman’s ultimate goal! Marriage is a rite of passage, not an accomplishment as most women take it. Marriage is not the only source of happiness in an adult woman’s life and it definitely shouldn’t be seen as the ultimate measure of womanhood.

To be fair, women are not entirely to blame for this mindset. It all comes back to how we are socialised. While we grew up at a time when women were making huge strides towards an equal footing with men, being urged to dream big and pursue courses like medicine, engineering and actuarial science, this came with another unspoken expectation – of marriage and motherhood.

CELEBRATING CAREERS

Even as we pursued our various passions and reached for the skies, we always had it at the back of our minds that a woman can be successful, but her success can only be validated by marriage or at least motherhood.

These expectations are still as rife today as they were two or three decades ago. Ask any single Kenyan woman on the other side of 30 what she dreads most about parties and extended family gatherings and she will tell you about the incessant queries she gets about her love life.

“When are you getting married? There is this amazing man that I would like you to meet. Oh, you’re dating? When is he bringing the cows? Why don’t you at least have a baby? …” It goes on and on. No ever wants to know how her career is progressing. Questions about the MBA are only asked in passing. 

As long as we do not give a woman’s career as much importance as we do her love life, then the gender gap will never be closed. It is time to re-evaluate our stance. Anyway, why do we put so much value on something that a woman only has partial control over – a lovely man getting down on his knee – rather than the stuff that she actually has full control over like a progressive career?

Why don’t we start by celebrating job promotions as much as we celebrate weddings, engagements and baby showers?

We can also stop putting emphasis on dating with purpose. You know, where women are told not to date without the intention of marriage. It would be great if we started dating for fun and for the different experiences, and if we stopped being hesitant when it comes to celebrating the successes of unmarried women.