The African Woman
“African women” would be a term that refers to the body of female-humans who are citizens of one of the 54 Countries in the African continent. She is usually appraised as being “black and beautiful” and “the seat of endless love and sacrifice”.
The traditional African woman is trained to be conservative within the society, she views herself as being inferior to the male specie and is taught to forever remain dependent and submissive to a male, whether in the capacity of her father or husband. At some points in history, she was regarded as a “property”, to be “reared” and then sold off to a man in marriage and sometimes as a mere tool for show of power and affluence by men. She was good for nothing but the care of the home, her husband and her kids. She was never to be seen outside the house except on the way to or from the stream, at a friend’s house, at a societal ceremony, or then at the market, trading. She was denied opportunities to engage in self fulfilling jobs, leadership positions or even the platform of education. Platforms that equaled her to a man was totally frowned at.
Such was the lot of the traditional African woman and this is not to say that such constructs and arrangement doesn’t still exist, but in a whole lot of ways, the times have changed for her.
The term “African woman” have now evolved from being a representation of inferiority, weakness and dependency to a term that illustrates strength, prowess, excellence, peace, innovation and in many cases, leadership. Modern African women now take up roles that have customarily been assigned as being beyond their capacity. They have really stepped up the pedal and are now seen as more of an equal than an inferior to the male folks. She now takes up “masculine” jobs, can be seen everywhere in schools, in government, in top-ranking administrative positions and in positions of high virtues.
This is not to say that African women can now boast of the much freedom, independence and equality that women in the western world enjoy, but this is to simply say that as an African woman, I have greater chances at the actualization of my dreams than my progenitors did. I am allowed to dream and achieve my dreams, to get to whatever heights I wish to, although such pursuit will be tougher to achieve than it would be for my male counterparts.
Conclusively, the African woman has undoubtedly come a really long way, but then, she still has a long way to go.
