Our view of true Women
Emancipation!
(by Remmie Male Founder Women of Valor
Foundation) buy your copy now, for more information log onto www.bridgemedia.co.ug
As a woman, it grieves my heart
to know that a good thing has been misunderstood for so long. When as women we
cry out for economic independence, emancipation, salvation from violent
husbands or balance in respect, we are not asking for too much. The women
emancipation struggle today reminds me
of the time in school when my friend Victoria Namuli abused me that am as
skinny as the stick they use to get banana leaves (Lusolobyo) then in my defense
I beat her up to a pulp and when the teacher came and found us I was the one
who was punished. I had really been insulted unjustly but the way I retaliated
got me good canes. Here I am the initial victim being punished for trying to
fight for my respect. We all have to admit that the way I was fighting to claim
for my respect was a very wrong channel. One, I could have gone and reported my
friend to the teacher or two, I could have used any other none violent solution
to my problem and all these channels would have earned me an apology and
restored my respect from my friend. As women I say we need to revise the way we
are crying out to gain a dignified life. Most of us women have fallen prey to
the vagaries of being a woman, the injustices and the disrespect that comes out
of these imbalances and in return we are fighting back violently to reclaim our
respect but this is really the wrong channel. In every human being there is a
level of goodness and trust me if as women we reach out for the men’s good
sense to show them the realities of our plight, I assure you our issue is self
explanatory to any sane human and they will come on board with us to fight for
our emancipation. I just will never forget this interesting discussion I had
with my two friends Sarah Nsigaye and Xenson Senkaba over a platter of roasted
goats meat! To this date I can’t believe we dint chock on our meal. The gist of
the discussion was that the concept of women emancipation has been an enigma to
many! The irony of it all is that the women who are crying out for empowerment
have no clue what ideal women emancipation means. For decades now there has
been a misconception that women empowerment means dethroning the men from their
power seat. At women of valor foundation we believe that for women empowerment
to fully succeed we have to bring the men on board. Xenson being the man came
to the discussion with his claws out since he had just about had it with the
already deep rooted false propaganda of what women empowerment should be like.
His view was that the women who go about fighting for emancipation are getting
it all wrong. To that point he believed that all of us who are looking out for
women empowerment are just a batch of women on a coup d’état mission! This time
the king we are campaigning to overthrow from the thrown is the man. Now in a
gruesome battle we were in position to explain to him that women empowerment is
for the better good for all parties. Our arguments were that if the woman is
given economic independence the entire home is economically empowered. If the
struggle to look for the children’s school fees is shared then the family’s
financial burden on the man is made lighter. Which human being would not be
happy to save some of their money and time? We then saw Xenson understanding
our message and joining our team. I also distinctly remember Sarah telling him
that she was actually not impressed by the western way of emancipation. It’s
not about domination over the other sex, it’s not about playing the weakling,
it’s not about making yourself financially accomplished so that you can
disrespect the other party, neither is it about manipulation of the other party
and taking them down the guilt trip for the atrocities leveled on us by their
counterparts in the past. Her take was that the woman should not lose her sense
of motherhood and womanhood all in the name of emancipation. Both parties
should respect one another and appreciate the role each plays in their family.
She was particularly against women who want to play at being men in the name of
emancipation. From this discussion I drew one claver conclusion that women
empowerment is a mutual struggle for mutual respect and balance. Working
towards an environment where Men and Women are both living a balanced out life;
socially, economically and intellectually to facilitate harmony between the two
parties. Putting in place models where Men are respecting women and women are respecting
men is very vital in this fight. There are so many good models in our cultures
and norms that if they are not manipulated for power play bring a beautiful
sense of satisfaction in being the sex that you were created to be. We were
created to be team mates not sawn enemies. Manipulation of religious beliefs
and cultural norms to gain power over the other sex is what wreaked all this
havoc and brought us to this point of imbalance. There were so many Goddesses
in the past that men and women revered and Queens that ruled nations into
greatness. A woman can be as good at something as a man, so if we worked as a
team and erased the barriers put up in the name of power struggle then we will
all reap economic, social and intellectual benefits. We need to go back to the
drawing board and say look, we don’t want the men to lose their place but we
just want to have our place alongside them. In our campaign we are saying no
two bulls can get out of one door, let the bull be happy to be a bull and the
cow be happy a cow. Let us all stop playing at being the other sex. I just want
to be a full woman and live a life that gives me the opportunities that help me
grow into my full potential. We are
asking that there should not be any glass ceilings in our carriers simply
because we are women. True we have been relegated to the back yards of society
for generations now but we are asking to be a respectable part of society. Women
are just saying they are not the underdogs of society but partners to their
male counterparts. For goodness’ sake we are the mothers of our nations. No man
has come on earth without being birthed by a woman and us women we know that we
can’t sire children on our own so we are asking men to understand that they
could never be on earth if a woman did not nature them for nine months and go
through gruesome labor pains to push them into this world. How can we not award
such a person who passed through so much to bring us into the world with
respect and a right to a dignified life? We can respectfully work alongside
each other. This is neither a power or position struggle, hand in hand and side
by side with mutual respect we can realize true women emancipation. Women
empowerment is not a power play struggle but just a cry for all human beings to
live a dignified full filled life.
