In her essay Writing the Male Character (1982) Margaret Atwood shares a conversation she had with a male friend and later with a group of women in a poetry class centered on why their respective genders felt threatened by the other. The difference in fears was so strikingly different __the male friend responded he was afraid of being laughed at by women and feeling undercut by that while the women said they were afraid of being killed. Though seemingly farfetched we live in fear of being killed physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Afraid our bodies, minds, dreams, and hopes might be damaged, destroyed, taken from us, and or killed in a moment. Why? You ask. The number of cases of femicide globally is harrowing and so are the numbers for violence against women and girls. It’s not a condition affecting women in far places like South Africa or India only but it’s a reality for the women around you. While not all men commit violence against women or girls, the facts show most violence against women and girls is at the hand of a man, most likely one known to them. And no, raising concern over the violence against women and girls doesn’t negate the numbers of men killed or injured by a woman nor does the existence of the latter fact nullify the urgency to addressing the former. I am afraid of being killed. In the face of this as a woman, I have had to learn the many ways I need to protect myself and this on a daily.
We might not articulate it always but the thought of it is never far from our thoughts. Mentally mapping the spaces we walk into, assessing them for the quickest escape route or plotting how to defend ourselves should anything start, and or calculating the men to women ratio to achieve a semblance of calm when in any space. There’s the having to quickly discern how safe the other passengers are to our wellbeing as we get into a taxi or taking number plates down and sharing driver details with family or friends as we get into an Uber/Cab promising to call once we arrive, or the world of contained anxieties should we get into a car or find ourselves in a room alone with a male friend. Sadly the reality for most women is the distinctions between the safe and unsafe male are convoluted __the perpetrators of violence against them were most likely “nice people.” A heated argument broke out once in one of our Labs as some of the male participants reacted to the idea of this offended we had seemingly banded them __nice people__ with the “bad” men when we named the male as the perpetrator in our stories of violence lived. Their offense and rage are unfortunately insufficient to change or stem the reality that nice, well-spoken, educated, faith touting and from-good-homes men continue to violent the trust the women in their lives give them. We were taught to be wary of the “evil” stranger from without but got caught off guard by the friend within. So the list of ways we subconsciously work to “stay alive” on a daily is lengthy.
Even as daunting as the potential physical assault or death is there exist forms of dying daily that we are forced to live with as women and these gnaw at me. We continue to die while drawing breath still. Most poignant of these for me is how often we have to attain “invisibility” to survive and get out or through the day/situation unscathed. Don’t cause ripples the world screeches at us incessantly. Years after the Kikuubo incident, a male relative listened in disbelief as one of my siblings and I spoke about our experiences as women walking through Kampala streets. How we had to not only mentally map our paths prior but to pull ourselves in physically, to somehow achieve invisibility. In reducing our physical presence we attempted to glide through the world without drawing attention, to avoid sparking unwanted male attention and the worst of it, their ire. This attempt at invisibility continuing beyond the streets and into the various spaces we inhabited.
… ours is a patriarchal society (take it or leave it) and in such a context women who are seen as too confident or who flaunt their abilities are disliked and frowned upon in many circumstances, sometimes directly and on many occasions in these modern times subtly. It is alright for a male person to be bold and pushy, the worst he may suffer from will be people laughing at him and calling him macho but a woman viewed as pushy, bold, and loud may fetch a lot of displeasure and if that woman is a boss or prominent in any way then she may be totally unpopular.
Who wants to be unpopular more so in a work environment? Ostracized, stuck with a deluge of skewed work dynamics and strained interpersonal relationships? Or have their work disregarded for simply being women with shadows cast not only on our existence but our accomplishments too?
The publishing of Flora Nwapa’s debut novel Efuru (Issue 26) in the African Writers’ Series (AWS) was a huge milestone for women writers in Africa. Her novel was the first by a woman to feature in this instrumental publication for the continent. Yet she had to contend with criticism that suggested her novel was filled with triviality lacking significance, therefore. Her key critics finding fault with her characters and other elements even as others pointed out the similarity of these to works by male authors that were being praised such as Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine.
Anna Adima notes too in her article Where Were the Women? East African writing and the 1962 conference despite the presence of women writers only two women were published during the first decade of the African Writers’ Series and in East Africa, women publishing literary works dealt with prejudice designed to stall their accomplishments;
There was a wide-spread belief that women could not produce works of literary value, and both Rebeka Njau and Asenath Odaga faced prejudice in the false belief that their husbands had written their books for them.
The woman’s accomplishment filtered through to whom or what she is attached and her many accomplishments narrowed to her function in the pre-determined role. In a recent interview for the Los Angeles Times’ “Can’t stop watching” podcast, Tracee Ellis Ross mentions a deliberate ask for her character Rainbow ‘Bow’ to not be stuck with what she calls the “Lady chores” in the hit TV series Black-ish. If you haven’t seen it, Black-ish is an American sitcom Tv series centered around the life of the Johnson’s, an upper-middle-class African-American family led by Rainbow ‘Bow’ Johnson and Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson played by Anthony Anderson. Bow is an anesthesiologist yet as the show progresses we see less of her in this space while in nearly every episode we are treated to Dre at work as an Advertising Executive. Yes, the “lady chores” are somewhat shared between the couple __Dre prepares some of the meals (breakfast largely), handles school drop-offs and pick-ups of their kids, etc, however, we see more of him at work outside their home than we do Bow who is repeatedly in the kitchen, checking on his or the kids’ issues, putting out family fires and so forth, her accomplishment outside of the home relegated to the occasional episode. More telling is a later season of the show when Bow asks if Dre will finally call her Doctor Johnson, but he can’t bring himself to. This Kenya Barris creation drew inspiration for its premise and episodes (before his departure) from his life as he has shared in several interviews __his wife at the time an anesthesiologist nicknamed Bow. I love Bow Johnson, her humorous self-deprecating character is fun to watch and easy to attach to but I hear Tracee Ellis Ross in her call-out for the roles women are pigeonholed into and that beyond film and production sets. Death in shades.
Sometimes I think back to the time of oblivion as a child when the world was ours. It appalls me to think soon I will have to have the “how not to die as a woman” talk with my nieces and the young girls in my life. My mind often awash with calculations to whether they are at ages appropriate for this I swing between “how soon is too soon” and “lord no, don’t let it be too late.” I’d much rather talk about self-determination, the pursuit of dreams and personal goals, daring to believe, experiencing spirituality, service to their communities, and all the possible opportunities available to them but I am afraid of them being killed __their bodies, minds, souls destroyed. Dead prematurely. I will have to talk with my nephews too.
We’re afraid of being killed.