BEING A WOMAN IN THIS WORLD

Too many times when I am on Twitter or Facebook, I see disturbing and infuriating posts about how a woman has suffered a gross violence or indignity at the hands of a man.

I am stunned at the regularity with which these incidents are being reported. That tells me two things – the impunity which men have historically acted with when it comes to how they treat women is under review and women are speaking out now.

There is a glorious change in how women expect to be treated by men and it is a shifting of scales I am happy to be around to experience. Suddenly I am living in a world where men can be held accountable for their actions and hopefully Swaziland will catch up to this.

(Enact the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill already!)  I read about a woman who was released from jail following a 15-year sentence somewhere in the Middle East after she suffered a miscarriage.

I will never forget reading about young girls in a West African country who had just hit puberty having their breasts flattened by rocks by their mothers to keep the attentions and advances of men at bay.

A 14-year-old girl was raped by a 50-year-old in Nigeria, and as the report was made to the police and they were proceeding to arrest the perverted old man, it was discovered that with the consent of the girl’s family the middle-aged man had married her.  Despite her being a minor, the shame of her possibly falling pregnant out of wedlock was too much for her family to bear, so they convinced her abuser to marry her.

Women in Sudan are lashed 40 times for wearing trousers and on top of that they are awaiting trial for their egregious crime. We hear all the time that most women don’t believe they can decline the sexual advances of their husbands.
This is always for varying reasons, some because they believe if they decline, their husbands will cheat on them (they’re cheating anyway sis), others believe they cannot say no because their husbands are entitled to their bodies, others just quickly agree before it turns into rape although many will tell you ‘there is no such thing as marital rape’.

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