The Cross of Womanhood

The weaker sex is not so comfortable playing second fiddle any longer. A cross section of them bared their minds on what they consider the cross of womanhood. GOD’S COVENANT SNR reports.

Senator Louisa Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele (Lawyer, Politician, former Deputy Governor and mother of two):

I don’t think that my life as a woman generally has been a cross. I have been very lucky that I had a father who was in fact a champion of women’s courses;

he was the one who encouraged me into politics, so I don’t think I have any crosses as a woman; and whatever crosses I may have had as a gender issue, I have overcome them all, so whatever cross I have overcome is no longer a cross.

However, I think the main cross for women generally is the gender issue: that is, the male prejudice where men cannot accept that women can be as effective as them, that women can achieve the same result, not only in the political terrain but in every aspect of human endeavor.

Generally, I think there is this belief (although the world is changing now, but it’s still there), that a lot of men still think that women are inferior; everywhere in the world this insinuation is being acted out, and that is the cross that all women have to bear.

Helen Onyenike (Mother of five and Business woman), Lagos.
My own cross as a woman is that I was given out in marriage as a child of 15 years in 1980; education was not considered because I am a girl and poor me, I didn’t know what it meant to be a wife or have a husband.

I was a virgin and innocent and that was how I grew up to adulthood in the man’s house.

I have had three children in quick succession, at age 16, 18 and 19 before it dawned on me that I really am a wife and mother like my mother at home.

At 22, I had my fourth child, and after I had my last born who is now 23, 18 at the age of 29, I headed for family planning secretly. I am already a grandmother as I speak to you.

But in the child marriage I thank God because my husband turned out to be a good and loving man, although I wish I had gone to school and had the choice of deciding who I marry at my own time, but I couldn’t; that’s a cross I have to live with because I am a woman.

Mrs Rose Ogai (Lagos housewife and trader)
I married a man who didn’t have anything because I was getting too old to remain in my father’s house; so when this man came I was glad with great hopes that he will become somebody, but time and age have proved me wrong; even ordinary good luck is far from him.

Before long I bore three children for him, and whether they ate or went to school depended on me, so I had to be patient and struggled to trade and feed us all; not that he even gave me capital to trade: I had to sell okro, vegetables; every food item in season, and pure water every day including Sundays after service.

At first I thought he was not just lucky because he has a diploma in marketing, but after 14 years I have to console myself that he too is my cross because he has taken my place and I his place;

but the biggest cross of it all is that I am pregnant again inside this entire struggle. In my quiet moments, I sometimes wonder whether it would have been better if I had remained single, but I never could decide the answer to that question.

I sometimes pray God to turn me to a man

Mrs. Concern Martins (CEO, SO-SAID Charity Home, Lagos)

“You see, sometimes I personally pray God to turn me to a man, so that when men see me they will see me as one of their kind. The reason is that as a woman, I am carrying a burden; in every form I’m staggering under a burden.

Sometimes I find myself groaning to God and asking Jesus Christ: did you suffer what I’m suffering? Did you pass through all these things you put on an ordinary woman like me? Okay, I know you suffered, they killed you on the cross for us, yes;

but did you do this, did you do that? Did you pass through all these sufferings I pass through every day? This is too much for me.

“I need support from my husband, from everybody around me, from the press, corporate organisations; I need help; you have no idea what great burden So-Said is. Even when Mary was pregnant, Joseph understood;

otherwise, he would have disgraced her before the public and driven her away, but because of the man’s understanding through God’s revelation, he was patient with Mary.

Mrs Chika Nnaemeka (Civil Servant, Marina, Lagos)
The part of my life I consider a cross is my husband; he does not listen to me; he treats me like I have no mind to think so that whatever I suggest or ask him to do in any situation, I’m just wasting my time;

it is what is in his mind that he will do. He will tell me he’s a man, he’s the head of the family and that spoils lots of things between us.

During the one week strike in January there was no day he didn’t go to work; he will not listen to me and stay at home; even Sundays they call him to come to work;

I will tell him to switch off his phone or tell them that there is no motor running at our end but he will just go as if I have not said anything;

that’s unfair! Even if he doesn’t consider my opinion let him open up and say no, I won’t do it; but to just ignore me as if I’m nothing is bad; is it because I am a woman?

If I am unhappy or I’m not talking to him, he’ll not say, my wife come, what’s the problem? Even when he misbehaves and I complain he will ignore me, and if I don’t talk to him he will not bother;

eventually it is me that will still go to him and try to make up for the wrong he has done to me; and instead of him to apologise he will just go on and on justifying himself.

There was a time he so hurt me I kept to myself up to four months and he just ignored me; he didn’t come to me, didn’t try to make up and for the four months he didn’t even touch me, can you imagine?! Am I a fool?

Those are painful areas of my life I hate so much and it is happening to me because I am a woman. A man who cannot pet his wife, not to talk of pampering her and making her happy to be your wife; I don’t like it at all, but I can’t do anything about it because I am a woman.