Defining Myself

When I think of how people see me as an African woman, the following words come to mind:

Victim: Because acts are visited upon me either because they are supposed to be for my benefit, because that is how women are treated, because that is the way it has always been, or because I “deserve” it. Victim, also, because like black Madonnas, we sit, eyes hooded in grief and helplessness, as stronger people make our men and our sons shed the blood we gave them for wars we did not start, and heartless men violate our daughters and sell them into slavery of all kinds.

Mother: Because African women, with their wide childbearing hips and their assigned role, are mothers par excellence. It is believed by many that this is the most exalted role they can play. But is it because the African men have abdicated responsibility for social cohesion to the women?

Whore: Because “we” all know that if you do not have money, you cannot possess a woman. But think of all the wives of poor, emasculated, unsuccessful husbands. Thinks of the wives of those people who the white man says live on less than a dollar a day.

Provider: Because we give and go on giving long after we have nothing left to give that will not lead to our own destruction.

But is that what we are?

I am not a victim because I am in charge of defining what road my life will take. I have received no charity or understanding because I am a woman. I have had to fight for what I am. I want my struggle to be recognised. I am not a victim because even though some would reduce me to that status, I still find ways, even in the most restrictive of societies, to do thing my way. I am not a victim. I am a survivor.

I am a mother yes, in the sense that I have children. But I do not believe that motherhood ennobles us. Rats are not noble for having baby rats. Much of the business of procreation is controlled by forces we can barely control, much less understand. The definition of motherhood, for all that it confers respectability (only in comparison with women who are not mothers), is also a prison, for mothers bear much of the burden for bringing up the children. We can only escape the invisible, underground gaol of motherhood when we decide to be mothers on our own terms. Some of us are doing so. Others are yet to learn that in the praise of motherhood, there is censorship.

If I am a whore, then I hope to be the kind of whore that no one can afford. I remember a respectably married woman saying to some fifteen years ago: “we are all prostitutes; that is what we do”. I do not give myself to a man. I share part of myself with him for as long as he behaves himself, mainly by sharing part of himself with me. That is all the exchange I ask, and as it is generally a lot less than what he is asking of me, I am not a whore. If I take money from him, it is because the particular social structure in which we live has given the men almost exclusive custody of the fruit of our joint labour, and it is only by negotiating with him that I can get some of my own back. So I am not a whore. I am a negotiator. But one day, I shall stop negotiating. I shall put my foot down.

I am a provider. I am only now learning to set the limits of how much I will give. To be perfectly honest, I now know what the limits should be, but I am still afraid of seeming “unfeminine” by not giving up everything, including my soul, for my family and the menfolk. But I now know there should be limits. One day I will apply them.

In 1969, after more than a millennium of lying, the Catholic Church finally admitted that Mary of Magdala was not a whore. They did not admit their mistake with any of the fervour that they disseminated the slander. That, to me, is the story of African women. But we should not wait to be “cleared”. Mary Magdalene is dead, and dead women don’t bite. We are not dead.

We should tell people that they are wrong about us.

Comments

[sokari ekine]

Hi - This is an amazing piece - welcome to the blogosphere especially the African Women's Blogosphere.

[Martin Jumbam]

Enanga, welcome aboard. I knew this would come, one day. It's here now and I'm happy with what I'm seeing. I'm one man who's always stood in awe of your intellectual gifts, especially as we share the same profession, although we stand generations apart -- the sun gradually setting on my generation already.

Our encounters have so far only been in cyberspace but they've been enriching ones - at least, to me. The day your foot next hits the soil of La République, on your way to Buea, the historic capital of Southern Cameroons, don't forget to shout. I'll be within listening distance.

By the way, what does "pov" in "Enanga's pov" stand for? Just being curious.

[Emil Mondoa]

Hello Martin:
pov = point of view
Emil

[KC]

Thank you.

[MATUTE ESUNGE]

Enanga,
Another giant, illuminating and fearless leap, torch-in-hand into the obscure and yet crowded public place. Public place characterised by diversity of persons and divergent POVs that never divide us, per se. They stigmatize, chastize, hurt us and end up making us stronger, as we explore our inner strengths enthusiastically.
With your personal assessment in 'DEFINING MYSELF', we can now say irrefutably that you join the folk of thinkers to gently but firmly shout out "...Intellect in a woman is NOT unbecoming..."
Stay the course.

[James]

An incredible mind,thought provoking article "Defining myself"..Your work is a masterpiece, I wish our African Sisters could read and believe this.

[Kale Ewusi]

Brilliant! Very very brilliant.

[Job Orjioke]

Rosemary Ekosso has written a controversial but thought-provoking discourse; the contents of which may not be totally agreeable to me.But I guess we all have the right to choose and define our moral space. Every culture(African and non-African) that defines the relative roles of men and women within society each has a moral and a functional basis for doing so.

The moral foundations help set the boundaries as to acceptable ethics and codes of conduct. The functional foundations ensure that society continues to produce and renew itself within the boundaries of these set of ethical rules. It is the combination of these two paradigms that help define how men and women relate to each other and how they are viewed in African cultures.

The African, thus, despite all his/her career and business successes outside of his community always returns "home" to take his/her rightful place. Check out all those that made it abroad - Herbert Nganjo Endeley of the University of Ibadan, Gottlieb Monekosso of FAO, Kofi Annan of the UN, Eileen Sirleaf Johnson of the World Bank, now Liberian President, all returned home after their successes and took their places within the boundaries of these moral set of rules that define manhood and womanhood.

In other words, like Achebe once said in "Things Fall Apart", a person can not rise outside of his clan/community.When we define our individual identities outside of the moral component of this paradigm, we may sound very intellectually "chic" but what we end up doing is that we create the foundations for rootlessness and chaos.

Urban America and Europe are reflections of societies that tried to redefine things functionally...outside of moral boundaries. Today, they are filled with a floatsam of rootless people who implode into riots at the slightest provocation.

When the old Pelopenessian/Grecian kingdoms began departing from the works of Plato and others that focused on building the community/commonwealth within defined moral boundaries and took on the teachings of new, intellectually-"chic" philosophies of the Stoics and others that emphasized the "individual" without the community, they began their gradual and later rapid decline. Today, these kingdoms only survive as philosophical references.

Has the African view of men and women adjusted functionally to the needs of 21st century globalization? Not really, if you ask me. Should it be subject to a review in the light of colonialism, independence, post colonialism and now globalization? Yes because our generation is what I call the "halfway" generation. We gave up the "secure" non-market-economy-driven community of our forefathers and have still not been able to define a new community that guarantees each person the identity and space he/she needs for full actualization.

And we have ended up like the noble duke of York who was in between the base of the hill and the top and was therefore neither up nor down

I admire the charisma and eloquence with which Rosemary Ekosso makes her points. I also admit that her arguments do give some of us food for thought. I believe that there is the need for the African woman to seek out a new identity within the content of a 21st century global village.

But I do not buy her philosophy

She, however has my utmost respect for speaking out boldly and for thinking critically and outside the box. I also thank her for kicking the ball of discussion into the global space of intellectual discourse.

Thank you Rosemary and may you live long.

Incidentally, like you, I spent some of my growing-up years in Buea though I currently reside in Chicago Illinois.

[Ma Mary]

Job, you have just dipped your toe in the bath water, but you need to take the plunge. You have provided some generalities here, very broadly philosophical ending with Rosemary, "I admire, but I disagree."

Could you kindly be more specific about your disagreement? Put some meat on the skeleton, because it looks like you are up to something, but one is not clear what that something is.

Rosemary is quite vehement about casting off the strictures placed on her psychologically and otherwise by a partriachical world. How can you, a man, challenge her right to do that? How is that associated with a disembodied market system.

Sooner or later, every society dies or is transcended. Where is Ancient Khmet (Egypt)? It lasted 5000 years, perhaps 10,000 years by some reckonings, but it too passed. If the overcoming of suffocation of the female leads to societal transformation, perhaps that society deserves to be transformed or to go extinct. It is very easy to hearken to ancient norms when one is a privileged African male!

[Job Orjioke]

Good evening Mary,
You know, I did not wanted to write further on this topic, knowing that doing so would open up an entire vista of discourse,the details of which I may not be able to follow through with thoroughness, given my rather busy schedule as a co-parent and as a career person.

I will however start by highlighting just 2 of the controversies that I hinted on in my earlier contribution

Controversy #1: "If I am a whore, then I hope to be the kind of whore that no one can afford."

Controversy #2: " I am a mother yes, in the sense that I have children. But I do not believe that motherhood ennobles us. Rats are not noble for having baby rats. Much of the business of procreation is controlled by forces we can barely control, much less understand. The definition of motherhood, for all that it confers respectability (only in comparison with women who are not mothers), is also a prison, for mothers bear much of the burden for bringing up the children. We can only escape the invisible, underground gaol of motherhood when we decide to be mothers on our own terms. Some of us are doing so. Others are yet to learn that in the praise of motherhood, there is censorship. "

I know that I did spend 9 of my growing-up years in Buea and came to understand and empathize with Bakweri culture which I perceive Rosemary is drawn from and is proud of.

I also took the liberty of going through the compendium of online resources that Rosemary and other Bakweri descendants put together to celebrate Bakweri culture and I sincerely do not see how the two statements which I lifted from her discussion lines up with what she proudly assembled as represenrtative of her culture.

Based on the little I remember during my growing up years, a woman's place in Bakweri culture is proudly defined and defended by the community.

Being a mother not only confers upon a woman, some assurance that she has children that will look after her in old age, it also confers on her a socail status derived from the proof/fact that she is capable of fulfilling one of the functions which nature uniquely endows her with - the ability to carry human life for nine months, bring forth that life and continue the procreation of her race.

While rats and other vermin may be able to procreate like all living beings, what sets man apart from these creatures is the ability to organize themselves into society, marry and give in marriage, develop music, art forms and other paraphenalia of social life.

I think that one of the things that I disagree with most in her write - up is the comparison of human beings to rats.

While the 21st century market system may have diluted the African's respect for womanhood by sometimes getting the women to marry the man with the most pecuniary means, this does not in any way translate to whoredom.

The last time that I checked for the dictionary meaning of the English word "whore", it meant a man/woman who offers himself/herself indiscriminately (or to any body, anytime, anywhere) for sexual intercourse especially for money. This definition applies to both male and female characters.

I can not in any way believe that what I know of Bakweri, or even most African cultures, translates marriage into whoredom or some form of debased sexual exercise.

That is why I maintained and still maintain that her discourse is thought-provoking and controversial but admirable. Admirable because it is presented with clarity and eloquence and it seeks to redefine ancient concepts and institutions from an "outside the box" perspective.

It is an intellectually-stimulating discourse but one which from a functional and ethical perspective, sounds unAfrican and may not find many disciples.

This is not a value-laden position. It is simply a statement of fact which has nothing to do with my personal position on this matter.

I rest my case Mary.

Thank you for taking time to read this.

[Henry]

A quick comment just to say it was a nice piece that attracted me to read through. I stumbled on this blog a few moments ago and I find Rosemary's views educative. She looks for ways to strike a balance in her views and that's very important. And Rose, if you read this comment, let me know if we could have a talk on some of your views.

[Cynthia Besong]

Enanga - This is excellent! I knew this would come from you even back in the days at QRC the writings were on the wall.I have enjoyed reading this piece!

[George Esunge Fominyen]

Ma'am,

Your self definition discourse is indeed thought provoking. It lets one into myriads of mental debates with one's self. Raising questions like - who am I? What do I stand for? How do I perceive others? How do I perceive women? What do I think women are?

However, I seem to detect in Enanga's views the inability for us Africans to define who we are. Are we what we have become as a result of our education and cultural assimilation? Are we Africans with a deep rooted culture that we we can easily refer to?

It is difficult for us to answer these questions with a straight YES or NO. Hence Enanga's view of herself, her role as a woman, the place of an African woman, the concepts of motherhood,whoredom,etc can only be unique and embattled within the two prisms, I mentioned earlier.

Good work, good thinking and hope to read that new book you've dished out.

[Paul Kinge Monyonge]

I see Roesemary looking at herself as a Victim. I don’t like you say you deserve it.. Because, if you feel that way it will psychologically disturbs you. My advice is for you is not to look at yourself as a victim,If you don't know,Women have been giving the same right like men. FURTHER CONSIDERING that Article 18 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights calls on all States Parties to eliminate every discrimination against women and to ensure the protection of the rights of women as stipulated in international declarations and conventions.
I also came from Buea, and have been leaving in Europe for years. To me personally it is not wrong saying what you think. I think women or men have the same right. We are in the 21st century, don’t look at yourself as a victim.
Thank you and May God bless you.

Paul Kinge Monyonge

[Francis NDIKUM]

Impressive site!