Because am Woman

I grew up with this pervading ideology that girls are soft, tender, or more bluntly put, weaker vessels, and should be protected by the menfolk. It was a generally accepted understanding that aggression or boldness were not very much desirable traits in a woman. What I did not learn, though, was what a woman should do when the men who are supposed to protect her become predators...

Africa, Asia, South America, North America, Europe...women all over... The story is one and the same. I lived through a heavy childhood, with stories in my mind I have still not been able to tell...which I wish will fly away into oblivion...is it the family friend who took me on his laps and smooched my tiny breasts? Or the economics teacher who held my bum provocatively while boasting that nobody would believe me if I tell? Or the grown ass men who request for sexual gratification before they can give you a job??? The woman's world is an unsafe place.

The glitch is, men will not protect women, women will not protect themselves, then who will protect the women from such a perverse world filled with gender based violence, rape, sexual harassment and molestation? Who???

Nobody is safe, the old grandmother that was raped two months ago in Southwestern Nigeria is definitely not safe, nor is the married woman molested by her boss and shushed to silence safe, is it the teens and adolescents? Who are taken advantage of by chauvinistic men at the slightest opportunity? Or the 2 months old newborn baby girl raped by a 75 year old man? Who is protecting who?

This is a call to action not just to women, who must stand up for their folks and protect themselves as much as they can, but to the menfolk, our supposed shields... Let these women be... Let them live...