Today
is designated International Women’s day in 2017, another day when women try to
collectively fight for the right to be appreciated for bearing the weight of
the world on our crumbling shoulders, for doing the most work for the littlest
pay, and for being the forbearer of the human race. Today happens to be the 18th
Birthday of my big baby sister, shout out to Ugochi Eunice Egole, Happy 18th
Birthday sweetie!!! Consider this your
best birthday gift J.
Like
a lot of women, I had to grow up and make several of the mistakes other women
made, because their mothers and big sisters never shared their pains and
offered advice to help them avoid these pains.
God blessed me with sons, but if he gave me daughters, just like my
sons, I would not shield them from any of my pain. I will cry in their presence as willing as I
laugh in it. I will share my mistakes
with them and proffer advice on how they can avoid my mistakes. So here goes…
To
my un-adopted daughter, my sisters, and all the women of the world. Today, I say as we collectively fight for
equal pay for equal work, more paid maternity leave, our God given authorities
over our bodies, punishment for our rapists, molesters, and abusers, the right
to own property, the right to not be property, the right to keep and raise
children that we bear, and the many other human rights that some of our mothers
fought for all the way to their graves, we should also fight individual fights.
Let
us fight the urge to procreate without first creating wealth for
ourselves. When we are young and are
virgins, let us say no to having sex to make our boyfriends happy, because we
have learned from our big sisters that they don’t marry us or stay loyal to us,
because we made them happy. Let us
instead demand to be made happy first and save our virginity for the one, who
first makes us happy. If we ourselves
want to have sex, let us request birth control pills or insist that our
partners use condoms. When we get older
and see our friends putting up cute baby pictures, let us look beyond the smile
to crying babies in poop diapers who will disturb our sleep, and jeopardize our
social life. Let us remember how much
day care cost, and how this cost has prevented other women from working and
creating wealth. Let us imagine the fact
that babies outgrow clothes every couple of months and how expensive this could
get, then they grow and take up even more of our time and money in raising them
right, clothing, and feeding them. Let
us fight the urge to pro-create without first creating wealth because diapers
are not as expensive as the rent or home ownership premium that goes with
living next to the best schools, motherhood is years and years of sacrifice,
and the hope of reaping the fruit of your labor, is hope that could go
unfulfilled.
While
we are refusing to procreate without first building wealth, let us also fight
individually to enjoy our own company rather than start and stay in
relationships that do not benefit us. In
my first year in college, my sociology teacher was fixated on relationships, he
made us write an essay about our ideal partner, and then from this essay we
created a list of ten traits that we wanted in our ideal partner. He stressed that people who were currently in
relationships (dating or married) should not write about their relationship
partner but instead look only to themselves to find the qualities they would
have put on their partner, if they had the ability to create the ideal partner. This exercise brought to light the fact that
most women do not fully explore what they want in a partner, but rather date or
/ and marry someone, then try to accept whatever traits or lack of which they
posses. Therefore I say to you dear
women of the world, write an essay about your ideal partner and from that essay
create a list of 10 qualities that you want them to possess. Hold this list dear so that when you find
yourself single and all your friends are married and dating and putting up cute
couple pictures on Instagram, think about how they stay up at night because
their partners snores too loud or wants sex all the time. Fight hard to replace
the image of their smiling face with an image of your own smiling face as you
smile for the yeast infections that you are not getting all the time. Then think about the fact that they are
probably using their money to pay rent, mortgage, utility, buy food, and
clothes for two and smile even more, for you only have to do this for one so
you can continue to build wealth for yourself.
Let
us fight individually to enjoy our own company so much that we only date men
who checks off a few boxes on our list.
When we get into relationships, let us fight to be respected and
appreciated in our relationship and our homes. Let us also fight to protect the wealth we
created for ourselves because gold diggers do not apply to women only, and pre-nups
can protect us just like it protects men. Let us demand equal pay for equal work in our
homes, let us fight for pregnancy support and maternity leave from our partners
and spouses, let us demand that they change more diapers than we do since we
have done the most work to bring forth the baby. If they are gracious enough to let us stay
home with our babies for as long as we want, let us fight to ensure that our
work hours are logged, and our measurable tasks are tracked, so that our share
of the family’s income is appropriate for the work we have put in. Let us fight individually to own property,
which we worked for with our spouses.
Let us also fight to ensure that if one day we have to parent our
children alone due to death or divorce, that we do not end up poorer.
Recently
my aunt told me that women are born poor, and we have to work harder than men
to create and keep wealth for ourselves.
Today, I urge all the women of the world to individually work hard to
create and keep wealth for themselves so that collectively we can fight against
the poverty that keep women abused and unappreciated.
Happy
International Women’s Day to all my mothers, sisters, and friends! Cheers J.
Copyright
Judith Adaobiihuoma Udeke
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