I've been taking French classes for a month now and I have to admit that it has been a lot tougher than I would have expected. Asides from the fact that I thought it would be like using the known to understand the unknown, I've found myself being forced to un-know a lot of things.
Un-knowing is a lot harder than knowing. The fact that you hear a sentence, change it to English and you're wondering "what in the world did I just say". But that's for another day.
Recently, I realized that whenever there's a minor disagreement in class, a certain instructor comes in and asks "what's the problem? Is it about how Mademoiselle Karina deteste le marriage".
Everyone has gotten used to it, unfortunately, my fear of marriage is hardly ever the topic of conversation, however, today, the disagreement was about marriage.
During a friendly conversation about a married couple, one of the girls in class talked about how she would quit her job if her husband asked her to and everyone in the class went crazy.
Her reason was simple "if my husband does not allow me to do this, I won't do it". I found her to be simple-minded at that point and simply said her reasoning was flawed but understandable.
Our disagreement got loud and the instructor came in and asked what the argument was about, then she made her usual statement "Is it about how Mademoiselle Karina deteste le marriage" I said somehow, and I explained the conversation to her.
At that point, she calmed down and decided to speak to us as a mother. Her next couple of statements are what inspired this post.
The instructor talked about being a complete individual rather than being half waiting for someone to make you whole.
In our society, it's believed that a woman is nothing without a man and should naturally be unable to fend for herself until she has a man to take care of her and tell her what to do.
The idea, the ancient idea, stuck in the mind of that poor lady is that she's incomplete waiting for a person to complete her. Or blind, waiting for someone to show her the way.
This same lady spoke about how she paid over $800 to learn how to bake and prepare pastries, and when I asked her if she would leave her passion for baking if her husband asked her to, she said yes. That to me is the height of incompleteness.
My brother once told me that in general females had no hobbies and all they did was sit around and wait for a man to come up with something for both of them to participate in. He definitely was not referring to me, because right now, my writing hobby pays me, I also love to travel and I don't hesitate to do so when I can and I've read more books than a lot of Nigerian University Professors.
I've spent a lot of time re-inventing myself and unfortunately, my recent ex-boyfriend referred to me as "too independent". I found that to be a compliment but I don't think he found it to be my most attractive trait. Men love to be needed, from what I gathered.
The African society has constantly tried to bring the woman down for wanting and being. And regardless of how much men try to avoid it and make it seem irrelevant, they know it's absurd. It's like putting a lady down for cheating and praising a man for not getting caught.
It's the only reason why the moment a lady has money of her own, it's assumed that she has a "sponsor" and sadly, these days, that's entirely the case. There's hardly a wealthy African businesswoman out there who doesn't have a known or unknown history of leaching.
This makes me uncomfortable most times and sad. I feel like my path is doomed before I even forge it. Imagine how crazy it is to work hard and achieve something remarkable and then they attribute your success to someone else just because society believes you are not enough.
It's why we praise the few who prove the society wrong, like the Director-General of World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
I found myself in a bitter position today, and it's been a while since I felt this incapable and lost. It's part of the stereotypes I'm working at changing every single day. I have no idea where life will lead me, and how my ideas might change in the next few years or months.
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