PEACEFUL WAR AGAINST STEREOTYPES

When will women be recognized as an entity?

Women will be recognized as an entity when we all decide to be recognized and treated as an individual. Today at the South African embassy, Lagos, I accompanied a fifty year old woman to apply for her visa in order to travel for a sponsored training but her documents were rejected on the ground that she did not have a consent letter form her husband, this is a woman with only two grown up adult children, her last child is in part four Pharmacy department in a Nigerian University unfortunately the interviewer is a woman, an educated one but entrench in stereotypical concepts.

We turned back from the embassy, feeling dejected but the question on my lips since then is when will a woman be free from all these backpack, front pack, side packs and invisible packs that continually draw her backward?

The experience took me back to Sunday evening when I was introduced to a woman who needed to meet me, she wants a job for her husband and I told her that I do not run any employment centre but she wanted to know if any of my friends need a driver and I replied, i do not have a friend, she smiled and replied, i just want him to work so that I will feel relieved.

She burst into tears. I was moved and held her closer, what is the problem madam, definitely not this reply. She spilled the bean bag.

She got married about sixteen years ago and was without a child for the first twelve years, which were agonizing years of her marriage fortunately she became pregnant. Today she has a five year old son, she gave birth through ceaserian operation which was mistakenly followed by a another pregnancy that was rejected and denied by her husband, he insisted that she must abort the pregnancy because another woman, a widow was pregnant for him. The widow has seven children already, this applicant of a husband moved into this widow's apartment, just by the corner of their street. He supported the business of the widow, since he has no job.

My friend cared for her pregnancy while her husband became a stranger but father for these orphans neglecting his legal wife. She painted a sordid story of her husband's character and at the end I asked her why she wanted favour for this man, 'she said the man is back again and whenever she goes to her shop, the man will open her door and carry her soup and all the food stuff to this woman but about three months ago, the widow could no longer support the house rent and they were thrown out of the rented apartment therefore the husband moved back to his first wife.

I screamed, so you took him back.

Yes aunt, she responded, 'I took him back because a woman without a husband is incomplete, and I have prayed all these days that God should turn his heart to me and all I want is a father figure for my children' but she finds it difficult coping with feeding the two families, the widow and her eight children and her, her two sons and the shameless husband because according to her, the husband will always turn her pot of soup into a food flask for his second family.

A woman needs a roof, and the man is the roof in Africa.

I wonder why women tolerate so much? We love peace but the fire burning women is hotter that the fire from live bullet.

When will our husbands need consent letters from their women to be granted visas, when will our husband need women to be called responsible men, when will a woman be the roof even while paying for the roof that covers their heads?, when will the peaceful war that liberate begin?