I loved this Guardian feature on Mia Couto, the Mozambican writer who was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Award this year. Speaking of Mozambique, he said the following:
“It’s a very patriarchal society, with high levels of violence against women. Women are ‘eaten’ by their society and by life itself.”
I find the metaphor of women being eaten by society hauntingly observant.
In a similar vein, in 1899, the paragon of black folk’s souls, W.E.B Du Bois, (whom I also wrote about in Afropolitanism and identity politics), pointed at the tyranny that women face in a chapter titled “The Damnation of Women’. He wrote
I shall forgive the white south much in its final judgement day; I shall forgive its slavery , For slavery is a world old habit; I shall forgive its fighting for a well lost cause, and for remembering that struggle with tender tears; I shall forgive its so-called “pride of race”, the passion of its hot blood, and even its dear, old, laughable strutting and posing; but one thing I shall never forgive, neither in this world nor the world to come: its wanton and continued persistent insulting of the black womanhood which it sought and seeks to prostitute to its lust. I cannot forget that it is such Southern gentleman into whose hands smug Northern hypocrites of today are seeking to place our women’s eternal destiny – men who insist upon withholding from my mother and wife and daughter those signs and appellations of courtesy and respect which else where they withhold only from bawds and courtesans.
Du Bois’s remarks are encumbered by notions of respectability. But they illustrate the tremendousness of the inequality between the genders. Isn’t it senseless that girls and boys are raised under such different circumstances, receiving even in the same school a different education, and within the family institution too? Isn’t it inane that gendered terms – ‘girl’ and ‘boy’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’, ‘wife’ and ‘husband’, ‘daughter’ and ‘son’ etc. – are hierarchical and symbolical of power in ways where the female term is below the male?
Inequality is not only “eating” women, it is also causing dysfunctional relationships between the genders and driving humanity to a state of chronic dissatisfaction and disarray.
Here’s the thing: When an individual is psychologically healthy, there is an alchemy between the masculine and the feminine. Exaggerated masculinity or femininity creates psychological disorder. To balance and harmonise, we must honour the notion of mutuality. Both within ourselves and collectively.
When I find myself in the presence of noxious masculine energy, I have to be mindful not to slip into exaggerated femininity – become quiet, gentle, timid. Similarly, when my surroundings are overstatedly feminine, it is necessary that I avoid becoming aggressive, dismissive and rash.
When my masculine and feminine sides are in harmony, however, I am able to respond to the world around me with strength, clear headedness, tenderness, confidence and power. This unity of masculine and feminine is conversely neither masculine nor feminine, it is neuter.
Image source: unknown (does anyone know?)
Thank you! This blog post is beautiful and hits the mark in regard to inner and outer harmony. Love your work!
Thank you @wodaabegirl:disqus I’m glad it resonated, and that my work generally does 🙂
Human Neuter? What a preposterous proposition. We might as well ask the creator to recreate all human beings and animals genderless. By the way, the creator shouldn’t forget in a hurry to make all creation the same just because we want equity and balance treatment between men and women. Correcting maltreatment and all variegated forms of discriminations against women is obviously the way forward. But to suggest that masculine and feminine should be neutralised to neuter is nothing short of a self defeatist mentality by any decent woman advocating such nonsensical proposition. How then do we appreciate the beauty of difference between the genders, all forms of genders in any case? We can’t just throw the baby with the bath water and start all over again. But we can fix what is obviously perverse and clearly working against women. The creator created man and woman for a purpose. That purpose is immutable regardless of what man or woman thinks, says or how they behave towards each other. The idea that you have masculine and feminine sides is only a self gratifying psychobabble espoused by the so called self-styled post modernists who continue to dissect and reconstruct what they want man and woman to be. I suggest you take a good look at the mirror once again, do a psychological self reflection and imagine yourself as a man and a woman together at once. The idea is simply odious.
In your agitation @Tyarow, you’ve missed the point I’m making. I’m not talking about male and female but about about masculine and feminine. So, a woman can behave in a masculine way and a man in a feminine way. But when both are present, a person is being neither masculine or feminine but something else, which I identify in myself as neuter, odious as it may seem to you.
This really resonated with me and my questioning of the idea of gender roles which is where I think the concepts of masculinity and femininity come from, that males must act in a certain way and perform certain tasks and females must act in a certain way and perform certain tasks. Certain abilities are defined by biology (child birth) and that’s fine. But I think personality, mental capabilities, personal conduct, etc cannot and should not be attributed to certain sexes.
Thank you, Ese. It’s maddening how these attributions have come to pass.
Wow! I discovered your blog this summer, maybe a month or so ago …my initial response was to an article about African Feminism (different handle. don’t recall how I stumbled on it) and I let rip with decades of pent up annoyance at the “toxicity” I have experienced (past and present). But as I surveyed your many posts I was incredibly impressed at the range and depth of nuanced truth you interrogate! Many times I’d think, wow, someone else thinks like that! I totally understand. Kudos for your courage! Your post on the need to “eroticize society” is so on point — I couldn’t agree more! But this one seals the deal for me – you are exactly right: “we must honor the notion of mutuality. Both within ourselves and collectively.” Your next two paragraphs summed it up beautifully. As an African male finally comfortable with my ‘anima’ side (has helped me navigate life with a bit more wisdom than is exhibited in the average person) I also value the woman comfortable with her ‘animus’. But I’ve also learned that an imbalance can effeminate the male, and ‘amazon’ the female. Not cool. Minna, someone like Oprah Winfrey needs to back you and turn you into a household name – in Africa, the diaspora and the world for that matter! You are onto something important with these insights. A blog alone will not break through the noise and clutter clogging our world.Perhaps that’s not your calling – but your message needs to be infused in society. I don’t understand how Beyonce, Adele, RIhanna, etc can have 100’s of millions of views of their work, and your work isn’t in that category of awareness!!! OK I understand, genre and medium, etc. but how can you employ every medium available to get these insights into the widest possible spectrum of society in Africa and it’s diaspora? You know, I actually believe that even the true practice of the Christian Faith has been severely compromised because it is almost heretical to acknowledge the truth that God desires a romance with His creation and it is a highly erotic experience to Love and be Loved by God!!! But eros has been ceded to the Devil!!! We need to change this!
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