Being the Weaker Sex
Working woman with her baby.Image: Your Life Hack. I know this very beautiful lady whose spirit is equally beautiful. She is the type of lady that brings about a sense of calmness when you speak to her. Her humility is so inspiring and the light in her eyes tell of a spirit that is happy, carefree and blessed. Then she got married. Barely three months into the marriage, I noticed a marked change in her demeanor; the light in her eyes had dimmed considerably, there was an air of sadness about her and what used to be graceful slimness began to look more gaunt than slim. When I perceive such sadness, I don on Agatha Christie’s Monsieur Poirot’s persona. I went about investigating the cause of her sadness and what I found was deliberately annoying! Her husband works in a multinational oil company while she works in bank. They both have to leave the house before 7am and both return home quite late. You corporate workers know the drill! It was a power marriage…but only for the husband. I found out that the husband demanded she cooked fresh breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. This lady would wake up at about 3:30am to prepare breakfast and lunch and to clean their house. She would package his lunch in a flask and help him prepare for work. After a long day at the office, she would rush home to cook his dinner and probably wait for him to fuck have sex with her at night. What was most annoying was that the husband demanded she washes his clothes too. He used to take his clothes to the dry cleaners before he married her but he was quoted as saying, ‘I cannot be wasting money now that I have a wife’. So this lady had to wash his suits, shirts and kaftans and iron them for her ‘darling husband’. After three months, she was bone-tired from balancing slavery house work and a hectic bank schedule. Truth is, she was tired of the marriage. She wanted out but being a ‘devout Christian’, she felt she had no options. You can imagine how angry I got when I heard all these. I was so mad I almost walked up to man to slap him! I know you would think it is not my business but truth is, it is! Here is why I got so riled up. Time and time again, we have been told that women are the weaker sex. Most religions of the world preach that women are weaker and it seems to be one of the few points that the religions of the world agree. In Islam, the Qur’an the Hadith says a woman has a ‘weaker mind’ (Qur’an 2:228 and Bukhari 6:301 respectively), the Bible in 1 Peter 3:7 calls the woman the ‘weaker vessel’, early Judaism saw the woman as ‘weak minded’ and even my grandfather drummed it in so well into his children that my father believes we are weaker. What of our cultures? They lend their weight to the notion that women are weaker. And not just that, they put up cultural markers in place to remind us that we are the weaker gender. So…if we are the weaker sex, why the bloody hell do we do most of the work?! There are many women like the woman I mentioned above; women who have to get it right at the home front and get it right at work. Some women are lucky and are allowed to have maids. Some are not. They have to do everything themselves! The argument has always been that men need to ‘focus on work and provide the bread’ so women have to ensure the home is properly catered to. I used to understand the logic. But now, more and more women are in the work place as their husbands are. Some women even do morein the office than their husbands. Is it then fair to continue to hold that ‘logic’ and to make such women do all the work at home? Let me shade my dad and brother a bit. My sister and I don’t live at home because of work so they probably see us twice a year. My other sister is in school and is home about four times a year. When we are away, my father and brother do all the household chores and maintain the house. My dad fixes his breakfast – a cup of tea – daily and sets off for work. Fast forward to whenever I come home. Soon as they see I am home, they take their hands off the household chores. My dad would even ask that I fix his breakfast. I want to assume that he misses me and would prefer to have that special bonding moment but eh ehn! I no gree! See, my father is set in his ways and one of his beliefs is that chores are for women. Simple and short! He raised us like that and even when my mother insisted that my brother does chores, my father relegated him to sweeping duty. Even that became a problem for him as we grew up. I knew he wouldn’t do it so I just took his portion. I spoke to my sisters and they said when they also come home, they experience same. My brother is especially worse. If I don’t wake up on time, my dad may still fix his breakfast but my brother? Total hands-off from chores! It wasn’t until I fell a bit ill that they both miraculously found the ability to take care of themselves (and the house) again. They wanted me to feel that if I wasn’t home, they would die but seeing how fresh they both looked, I begin to wonder. Done shading! Okay popsi, no vex abeg! You see, many men in the country are like that. They feel a woman can and shoulddo any and every household chore. A woman is supposed to maintain a house and maintain her husband and
