INDEPENDENT WOMAN

INDEPENDENT WOMAN

I have made a decision, if I am born a second time, I want to be a woman again. Every morning I look at my self in the mirror and realize that I wouldn’t trade for the world the shock on the faces of my hapless male victims as I sweep them with the torrents of my intellect and my razor sharp tongue and it doesn’t help that I am the ultra feminine type who loves make up and feminine vanities. It’s a almost a cultural suicide for them to determine whether to treat me like an equal or just like a ‘girl’
God has blessed woman with peculiarities that has left men perplexed for ages. Aside the curves that distinguish them from the men folk, the unpredictability and vulnerability that women occasional exhibit makes them to be classified as the ‘weaker sex’. Now the overall picture of a woman as painted by the society is that women are weak, dependent and fragile but the same society will report in its holy as well as history books the fall of men from the first man Adam to great leaders such as the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar and biblical king Solomon and Samson because of women and the list is endless. Thus the intellect and cunning nature of the woman is an issue society is only happy to overlook.

At the early stage of childhood,

the female child will show her ability to pay attention to minute details when she receives instruction. She grasps with very little effort what she is taught and invariably comes out top of the class. However the bright future you envisage for her begins to dim as she progresses from secondary school to the university. And then, her male counterparts who only years before busied themselves somersaulting and acquiring scars over take her and become bank executives and CEOs. But for the girl, at the end of her national youth orientation program, all she is preoccupied with is, settling down with a man and having babies and society beams its approval at her. Now how did this girl start so bright and end behind the ranks of her male counterparts? Well, I’ll tell you how. As the girl child reaches maturity and her curves begin to show, society’s unwritten rules subject her to the ideology of ‘be seen, not heard’ and soon she buys into the idea of the popular ‘women are the weaker sex’ slogan.
Now, I had an argument with a friend of mine yesterday from our discussion with a doctor

who was present. I had just stated categorically that I preferred female gynecologist to male gynecologist because of an experience I had where a male doctor examined me and wanted to have my number at the end of that exam. And somehow the argument veered off course and landed in the surgery zone and she told me that she felt male surgeons were more visible than the female surgeons. I was quick to point out the fact that the female professional faces the challenge of the society rules of conduct and the attitude of her male colleagues towards her as she is expected to be plain and austere to survive with the ‘boys’ otherwise she is open to sexual harassment and where she does this, she is accused of not being feminine or even maternal. And since the bulk of managing the home, the children and the husband rests on them, the number of female professionals is quick to fall in number. From studies men felt threatened by a dominating females and I have encountered this situation myself. I am a student of the Nigerian law school and I rarely hang out with the female law students. Most of my friends are guys and these guys thought albeit mistakenly at one point or the other that by virtue of being friends with me, I was a woman and needed to be owned. Before I knew it I had ‘boyfriends’ I wasn’t even dating. I swiftly changed my friends (still guys of course) and told this new set of friends in clear terms that the fact that I was a woman and they were guys did not mean I was looking for a man to own me. And now they are my friends and I can tell it’s not an easy job. It is almost unpleasant for them when I air strong political views and hold the forte in arguments they have no hope in winning. My voice is loud and clear, I will not be talked down at just because I am a woman. I am not intimidated by bobbing Adam apples and deep booming voices. I am an independent minded woman. When the men use the size of my bosom to judge the size of my brain, I can easily tell whose brain is smaller.
I salute the husbands of great women leaders who instead of denying their wives the opportunity to exploit their intelligence allowed them reach the zenith of their careers much to the respect and admiration of those women and by God’s grace I intend to marry a man like that. I am independent in my thinking, independent in my ambition. Yet I will not forsake my looks just to be one of the boys; I will wear my feminity with grace and speak with authority. Move over gentlemen, I am an independent woman, yes I am.