THE STRONG SILENT TYPE (FOR WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH)

My mum is a pillar. Like most women in my ghetto she had two jobs; catering for her family and running a small business. It wasn’t easy shuffling both but she found a way to be present, attentive and assertive. My dad always looked down on her small business calling it a hobby that she didn’t need because he wanted all the control. Awhile back his business had a heavy setback and he was out of work for three months. This happened around the Xmas/New Year break. My mum made sure we had a swell holiday and she was able to raise enough money to send us all back to school that semester. He had a new found respect for her from that moment on as he realized that she is the glue that held the family together.

Olamide had no idea what it meant to be strong. Growing up in a polygamous family where she watched her father beat her mum and step mum on a regular basis she saw it as the norm for a woman to be completely submissive to her husband and bear whatever persecution she came across as her cross. In her early twenties she was shipped off to marriage and her husband turned out to be just as abusive as her father had been. She knew real fear when Tunde walked in every evening angry and looking to vent. The most common reason he always gave the next day was her inability to conceive a male child for him. It all came to a head one Saturday afternoon as her three girls watched their father pound their mum till she fainted in the living room and they cried helplessly unable to do anything to revive her. Something had to change. Her daughter had asked her in the hospital if that was how marriage was supposed to be; husbands beating their wives when the mood struck and women taking it all without complaints. She watched stunned as a resigned look overtook her little baby’s features and she planned her escape with vigour. There was no way she was going to let her girls grow up with the same mindset she was brought up with.

If there was one person who knews what it means to have a hard life Timi would be that person. She was borne to a mother who worked nights as a sex worker and a drug addict father, her pathway in life was chosen for her before she was born. A sex slave by the age of 11 and an addict by 15 there was to be no digression. But a chance encounter with a charity worker gave her the chance to understand that just because her life was over before it began didn’t mean she couldn’t make changes. She got help with her addiction and today she works with an N.G.O that bring awareness to sex slavery and the rehabilitation of rescued girls.

What do all these women have in common? What is the denominator for almost all women you come across in life?

There is strength in-depth in every woman. The will to survive, the desire to protect fiercely the ones she loves and the ability to rise above pain. So it baffles me when I hear the term “weaker sex” used freely by men who do not like the thought of the female specie sharing the same space of authority with them.

No country has managed to achieve Equality, the progress is slow and political in nature and women still have to work thrice as hard to prove to society and family that their brains and willpower are just as strong as that of their male counterparts.

I applaud those making waves in the spotlight, working hard and bridging gaps in their own small way to show that equality is not a pipe dream and could become a reality soon. Women who work two jobs to keep their family in gear, those who give up careers to dedicate themselves to their children, the single mothers going without sleep endlessly to give their offspring a better life than they ever had, the rulers and corporate sharks gaining awareness…In this month of march I celebrate you. One day…soon we will not speak of equality anymore because like race we hope it won’t linger on as an issue that divides us across unseen battle lines instead of bringing us together as people working in teams for the good of all.

HAPPY WOMEN’S MONTH!!!