THE NEW WORKER

You can love being a mother while also admitting that it is the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Women have difficult and restless days. To be a mother is not as tender as it seems to be. Many women look three times their age all because of stress and exhaustion.

Women are living under the oppression of this culture thing. l can say culture somehow is good in terms of some respect of women but it also gives women hard times and they end up with high blood pressure and depression. For example, umendo means a journey without end. The elders say umakoti is bound to submit to the new rules of the new family. Women must be submissive to their husbands and do all the house chores, such as waking up early before everyone else to prepare food for everyone, clean, managing laundry, making and raising children and taking the children to school. Later, women must help the children with their homework.

Women are more than housekeepers. They do not sleep well and experience pain. Pregnancy and labour hurts. Not having time for herself hurts.

Culture says woman and girls are unable to negotiate and make decisions about their lives and bodies. This negatively affects their chances of completing their education. Culture reduces the power of women. Culture limits and restricts women's choices and prospects. Traditional woman must dress in a typically feminine way and be polite. Traditional women's gender roles revolve around characteristics such as helpfulness, passivity and kindness. Woman are seen as caregivers, nurturers, home makers and helpers while men's gender revolves around characteristics such as dominance, assertiveness and strength. Men are expected to be strong, aggressive and bold.

Women also suffer from being abused by their husband. They can even be sexually abused but because of culture it looks like it's fine because the men paid lobola so they can do as they please to their wives.

Culture can shape a person but somehow it oppresses women. Kids are raised in a culture where boys must not wash dishes because that is a female job. When these boys become men, they continue to follow what they were taught as children. So as men, they don't do dishes. If they are seen washing the dishes people will say udlisiwe. A man can sit down, read newspapers or sit on the phone while the woman will be busy up and down with household chores for the kids and the husband till she is about to pass out. Men don’t even make the bed because they were told by their parents that this is a woman’s job. No one is born a mother but a girl is raised and becomes a mother.

Category: THE NEW WORKER | NEWS