Woman, you are the source of life, yet an object; mother, yet domestic servant; nurturer, yet pseudo woman; you can do the bidding of both soil and hearth, yet you are invisible, faceless, and voiceless. You are the pivot, the unifier, yet a being in chains, shadow of the male shadow. This is a statement used by Thomas Sankara in his article ‘The emancipation of women’. He uses his article to describe the position of the Burkinabe women yet I think that it is just a true reflection of what women undergo worldwide. It is challenging yet inspiring at the same time to have a man point out the vices being done to the women in the society since men are till to date the oppressors of the women.
I take this moment to describe the role of the women in the society with a little reference from Sankara’s article. I say little reference because if it were up to me I would quote the whole article because Sankara has just spoken my mind about how we need to liberate our fellow women since we live in a male chauvinistic era whereby there are roles meant for the males and others specifically designed for the females, a society whereby women have been sexually objectified and the males are considered as super human.
The conditions of a woman’s life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. For instance take an example of the gender roles. I think all this were perceptions of people and therefore they can all be erased from people’s minds the way they were originally created. In a typical African setting girls grows up knowing that she should be the second wife of the house meaning she is supposed to take charge the way the mother does. She is to cook, do laundry, and take to task all the household chores whereas the boy child is supposed to seat relax and wait for everything to be done for him. This is typically stereotype because they are no laid down universal rules that state that men should do nothing, yet the same girls are expected to as the male child does. I think we have dwelled a lot on the girl child and forgotten that we have the boy child too.
They should be taught the equality between them and their sister as tender as from the lower classes with this we will be able to eradicate this stereotypes if women having to be under men all the times. Who said a man who does house chores and perform all the “women’s roles” is an inferior man? Thomas Sankara says it all about nurture not nature. If we put two kids in a room a boy and a girl ,and place toys inside that room and lock it the boy will not automatically pick a toy car and the girl a pink doll as the way we put it in the society. In fact the boy will most likely be seen picking up a doll the girl the car. My whole point is that this whole role thing is acquired and not innate and anything that is acquired can be un acquired.
My proposal would be to have a curriculum that advocates for affirmative action on everything. If these roles are instilled to the kids at a tender age then by the time they are growing up we will be having a totally different generation and thus leading to the different views and perceptions and eradication of the gender role stereotypes.
Take a look of the sexual objectification of women for example. This is something that has taken a very different angle. It is happening even in policy setting and agenda setting institutions places where we expect professionalism and likeminded people and great academicians. Some of these institutions are the media. I think the media has shifted from its roles and diverted to being a commercial entity. The dress code of the anchors, females to be precise is wanting from the length to the sizes the clothes are either too tight or very small. It is like these different media channels are competing on who is going to dress in the shortest and tightest dress. The question however is why this happening to only the female anchors? It could be that this is just a reflection of the society and for them to do that they must have done a background search and realized this is what is selling or in this case increasing their ratings. The media as the agenda setting body can dictate what to give to its audience and also spells out what is important due to the redundancy nature of its content, so when the media uses women in short dresses to appeal to its audience it creates a new set of stereotypes and creates a picture of sexual objectification being something so normal.
The other thing Thomas Sankara talks about is how irrational some men can be by classifying themselves as powerful and great by being adulterers. This is also just a reflection of how unfair the society is by how it rebukes a woman who has been caught in the act of adultery and fails to punish the partner who definitely is a man. Personally I feel like there is no difference between the two who have been caught performing the act they were both in it therefore all of them should be punished equally or all should face the consequences. In a setting of a family when the man cheats it becomes so normal because it is expected while when the wife does it she is considered unreasonable and of uncouth character. In the speech “woman emancipation” the idea of woman also being objects of pleasure has been brought out by Sankara how men spend their money on alcohol and women to have pleasure. Is it that women are enemies of themselves or is it that women are not well empowered because it looks like women do not have a say on anything when they are around the male species. This however brings me to the recently passed Kenyan bill on polygamy. The bill says that the first wife should not be consulted nor has a say on the husbands intention of bringing other wives home. This bill breaks the sanctity of marriage as an institution. Marriage is supposed to be between two people and not an institution where decision making is only by the husband. Submission has been mistaken to be slavery of women in their marriages and this has badly affected the initial meaning of marriage.
We are in the 21st century whereby women can also take the same places as their male counter parts. They can become policy makers, presidents, best doctors and even engineers and hail from Africa. For instance as we speak South African women have gained larger share of political leadership roles this now what is fashionable in South Africa. “it’s fashionable for, females to be in leadership ,we are beginning to see it as a normal thing here”, executive director of Gender links, who also was the founding chief executive officer of the South African Commission on Gender Equality. South Africa has soared from 17th to 4th place in the global ranking of women in parliament following the April 22 elections that saw an 11 percent increase in women’s representation in the national assembly from 34 to 45 percent .Only Rwanda, Sweden and Cuba are now ahead of South Africa, This was according to Charles Stewart Mott foundation magazine.
If we can have women in senior top management positions this shows that they can deliver beyond their stereotyped roles. And its high time ladies went for higher positions they too should show the will and should have a driving force.
The society too should take it upon themselves to educate both the boy and the girl child as I said earlier the boy child has been neglected thus we cannot stop these stereotypes as much as we want if we do not start with the root cause and on the other hand when you take the initiative of educating and empowering a woman you empower the whole society because a woman is a nurturer.
Women also should not stay in abusive marriages simply because they want to please the society a marriage is a covenant between two people that can be broken if both people are not working towards its sustenance. Men who discredit women and do not approve of women’s success should think of their mothers, sisters and daughters. Let us all unite towards educating a species that is of our own kind as women.
Woman, you are the source of life, yet an object; mother, yet domestic servant; nurturer, yet pseudo woman; you can do the bidding of both soil and hearth, yet you are invisible, faceless, and voiceless. You are the pivot, the unifier, yet a being in chains, shadow of the male shadow. This is a statement used by Thomas Sankara in his article ‘The emancipation of women’. He uses his article to describe the position of the Burkinabe women yet I think that it is just a true reflection of what women undergo worldwide. It is challenging yet inspiring at the same time to have a man point out the vices being done to the women in the society since men are till to date the oppressors of the women.
I take this moment to describe the role of the women in the society with a little reference from Sankara’s article. I say little reference because if it were up to me I would quote the whole article because Sankara has just spoken my mind about how we need to liberate our fellow women since we live in a male chauvinistic era whereby there are roles meant for the males and others specifically designed for the females, a society whereby women have been sexually objectified and the males are considered as super human.
The conditions of a woman’s life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. For instance take an example of the gender roles. I think all this were perceptions of people and therefore they can all be erased from people’s minds the way they were originally created. In a typical African setting girls grows up knowing that she should be the second wife of the house meaning she is supposed to take charge the way the mother does. She is to cook, do laundry, and take to task all the household chores whereas the boy child is supposed to seat relax and wait for everything to be done for him. This is typically stereotype because they are no laid down universal rules that state that men should do nothing, yet the same girls are expected to as the male child does. I think we have dwelled a lot on the girl child and forgotten that we have the boy child too.
They should be taught the equality between them and their sister as tender as from the lower classes with this we will be able to eradicate this stereotypes if women having to be under men all the times. Who said a man who does house chores and perform all the “women’s roles” is an inferior man? Thomas Sankara says it all about nurture not nature. If we put two kids in a room a boy and a girl ,and place toys inside that room and lock it the boy will not automatically pick a toy car and the girl a pink doll as the way we put it in the society. In fact the boy will most likely be seen picking up a doll the girl the car. My whole point is that this whole role thing is acquired and not innate and anything that is acquired can be un acquired.
My proposal would be to have a curriculum that advocates for affirmative action on everything. If these roles are instilled to the kids at a tender age then by the time they are growing up we will be having a totally different generation and thus leading to the different views and perceptions and eradication of the gender role stereotypes.
Take a look of the sexual objectification of women for example. This is something that has taken a very different angle. It is happening even in policy setting and agenda setting institutions places where we expect professionalism and likeminded people and great academicians. Some of these institutions are the media. I think the media has shifted from its roles and diverted to being a commercial entity. The dress code of the anchors, females to be precise is wanting from the length to the sizes the clothes are either too tight or very small. It is like these different media channels are competing on who is going to dress in the shortest and tightest dress. The question however is why this happening to only the female anchors? It could be that this is just a reflection of the society and for them to do that they must have done a background search and realized this is what is selling or in this case increasing their ratings. The media as the agenda setting body can dictate what to give to its audience and also spells out what is important due to the redundancy nature of its content, so when the media uses women in short dresses to appeal to its audience it creates a new set of stereotypes and creates a picture of sexual objectification being something so normal.
The other thing Thomas Sankara talks about is how irrational some men can be by classifying themselves as powerful and great by being adulterers. This is also just a reflection of how unfair the society is by how it rebukes a woman who has been caught in the act of adultery and fails to punish the partner who definitely is a man. Personally I feel like there is no difference between the two who have been caught performing the act they were both in it therefore all of them should be punished equally or all should face the consequences. In a setting of a family when the man cheats it becomes so normal because it is expected while when the wife does it she is considered unreasonable and of uncouth character. In the speech “woman emancipation” the idea of woman also being objects of pleasure has been brought out by Sankara how men spend their money on alcohol and women to have pleasure. Is it that women are enemies of themselves or is it that women are not well empowered because it looks like women do not have a say on anything when they are around the male species. This however brings me to the recently passed Kenyan bill on polygamy. The bill says that the first wife should not be consulted nor has a say on the husbands intention of bringing other wives home. This bill breaks the sanctity of marriage as an institution. Marriage is supposed to be between two people and not an institution where decision making is only by the husband. Submission has been mistaken to be slavery of women in their marriages and this has badly affected the initial meaning of marriage.
We are in the 21st century whereby women can also take the same places as their male counter parts. They can become policy makers, presidents, best doctors and even engineers and hail from Africa. For instance as we speak South African women have gained larger share of political leadership roles this now what is fashionable in South Africa. “it’s fashionable for, females to be in leadership ,we are beginning to see it as a normal thing here”, executive director of Gender links, who also was the founding chief executive officer of the South African Commission on Gender Equality. South Africa has soared from 17th to 4th place in the global ranking of women in parliament following the April 22 elections that saw an 11 percent increase in women’s representation in the national assembly from 34 to 45 percent .Only Rwanda, Sweden and Cuba are now ahead of South Africa, This was according to Charles Stewart Mott foundation magazine.
If we can have women in senior top management positions this shows that they can deliver beyond their stereotyped roles. And its high time ladies went for higher positions they too should show the will and should have a driving force.
The society too should take it upon themselves to educate both the boy and the girl child as I said earlier the boy child has been neglected thus we cannot stop these stereotypes as much as we want if we do not start with the root cause and on the other hand when you take the initiative of educating and empowering a woman you empower the whole society because a woman is a nurturer.
Women also should not stay in abusive marriages simply because they want to please the society a marriage is a covenant between two people that can be broken if both people are not working towards its sustenance. Men who discredit women and do not approve of women’s success should think of their mothers, sisters and daughters. Let us all unite towards educating a species that is of our own kind as women.
N
Woman, you are the source of life, yet an object; mother, yet domestic servant; nurturer, yet pseudo woman; you can do the bidding of both soil and hearth, yet you are invisible, faceless, and voiceless. You are the pivot, the unifier, yet a being in chains, shadow of the male shadow. This is a statement used by Thomas Sankara in his article ‘The emancipation of women’. He uses his article to describe the position of the Burkinabe women yet I think that it is just a true reflection of what women undergo worldwide. It is challenging yet inspiring at the same time to have a man point out the vices being done to the women in the society since men are till to date the oppressors of the women.
I take this moment to describe the role of the women in the society with a little reference from Sankara’s article. I say little reference because if it were up to me I would quote the whole article because Sankara has just spoken my mind about how we need to liberate our fellow women since we live in a male chauvinistic era whereby there are roles meant for the males and others specifically designed for the females, a society whereby women have been sexually objectified and the males are considered as super human.
The conditions of a woman’s life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. For instance take an example of the gender roles. I think all this were perceptions of people and therefore they can all be erased from people’s minds the way they were originally created. In a typical African setting girls grows up knowing that she should be the second wife of the house meaning she is supposed to take charge the way the mother does. She is to cook, do laundry, and take to task all the household chores whereas the boy child is supposed to seat relax and wait for everything to be done for him. This is typically stereotype because they are no laid down universal rules that state that men should do nothing, yet the same girls are expected to as the male child does. I think we have dwelled a lot on the girl child and forgotten that we have the boy child too.
They should be taught the equality between them and their sister as tender as from the lower classes with this we will be able to eradicate this stereotypes if women having to be under men all the times. Who said a man who does house chores and perform all the “women’s roles” is an inferior man? Thomas Sankara says it all about nurture not nature. If we put two kids in a room a boy and a girl ,and place toys inside that room and lock it the boy will not automatically pick a toy car and the girl a pink doll as the way we put it in the society. In fact the boy will most likely be seen picking up a doll the girl the car. My whole point is that this whole role thing is acquired and not innate and anything that is acquired can be un acquired.
My proposal would be to have a curriculum that advocates for affirmative action on everything. If these roles are instilled to the kids at a tender age then by the time they are growing up we will be having a totally different generation and thus leading to the different views and perceptions and eradication of the gender role stereotypes.
Take a look of the sexual objectification of women for example. This is something that has taken a very different angle. It is happening even in policy setting and agenda setting institutions places where we expect professionalism and likeminded people and great academicians. Some of these institutions are the media. I think the media has shifted from its roles and diverted to being a commercial entity. The dress code of the anchors, females to be precise is wanting from the length to the sizes the clothes are either too tight or very small. It is like these different media channels are competing on who is going to dress in the shortest and tightest dress. The question however is why this happening to only the female anchors? It could be that this is just a reflection of the society and for them to do that they must have done a background search and realized this is what is selling or in this case increasing their ratings. The media as the agenda setting body can dictate what to give to its audience and also spells out what is important due to the redundancy nature of its content, so when the media uses women in short dresses to appeal to its audience it creates a new set of stereotypes and creates a picture of sexual objectification being something so normal.
The other thing Thomas Sankara talks about is how irrational some men can be by classifying themselves as powerful and great by being adulterers. This is also just a reflection of how unfair the society is by how it rebukes a woman who has been caught in the act of adultery and fails to punish the partner who definitely is a man. Personally I feel like there is no difference between the two who have been caught performing the act they were both in it therefore all of them should be punished equally or all should face the consequences. In a setting of a family when the man cheats it becomes so normal because it is expected while when the wife does it she is considered unreasonable and of uncouth character. In the speech “woman emancipation” the idea of woman also being objects of pleasure has been brought out by Sankara how men spend their money on alcohol and women to have pleasure. Is it that women are enemies of themselves or is it that women are not well empowered because it looks like women do not have a say on anything when they are around the male species. This however brings me to the recently passed Kenyan bill on polygamy. The bill says that the first wife should not be consulted nor has a say on the husbands intention of bringing other wives home. This bill breaks the sanctity of marriage as an institution. Marriage is supposed to be between two people and not an institution where decision making is only by the husband. Submission has been mistaken to be slavery of women in their marriages and this has badly affected the initial meaning of marriage.
We are in the 21st century whereby women can also take the same places as their male counter parts. They can become policy makers, presidents, best doctors and even engineers and hail from Africa. For instance as we speak South African women have gained larger share of political leadership roles this now what is fashionable in South Africa. “it’s fashionable for, females to be in leadership ,we are beginning to see it as a normal thing here”, executive director of Gender links, who also was the founding chief executive officer of the South African Commission on Gender Equality. South Africa has soared from 17th to 4th place in the global ranking of women in parliament following the April 22 elections that saw an 11 percent increase in women’s representation in the national assembly from 34 to 45 percent .Only Rwanda, Sweden and Cuba are now ahead of South Africa, This was according to Charles Stewart Mott foundation magazine.
If we can have women in senior top management positions this shows that they can deliver beyond their stereotyped roles. And its high time ladies went for higher positions they too should show the will and should have a driving force.
The society too should take it upon themselves to educate both the boy and the girl child as I said earlier the boy child has been neglected thus we cannot stop these stereotypes as much as we want if we do not start with the root cause and on the other hand when you take the initiative of educating and empowering a woman you empower the whole society because a woman is a nurturer.
Women also should not stay in abusive marriages simply because they want to please the society a marriage is a covenant between two people that can be broken if both people are not working towards its sustenance. Men who discredit women and do not approve of women’s success should think of their mothers, sisters and daughters. Let us all unite towards educating a specie that is of our own kind as women.
By Immaculate Achieng.
A brief history and research in this art of seduction brings out the main fact that seduction was a biological weapon invented by the dominant female gender. They used attraction mechanisms like body morphology,sweet body scents and natural appearance to completely paralyses male’s ability to resist and stimulate their sensitivity and stimuli.This culture in females made them feel prestigious and egocentric.
Multimedia University Journalism Club 