While going through my e-library yesterday, trying to choose a new book to read, I stumbled on the book "Things Fall Apart" by the renowned Nigerian male writer Chinua Achebe.
Weirdly, I felt like reading the book all over again even though I've read it twice. This time, I was keen on the characters and events in the book. To my surprise, I realized things that in my words, I'd say we're sorta blurred out in my first two reads. It provoked some thoughts in me which drew me to a conclusion that the male imagination does indeed portray women in relation to men.
I've read many books written by men and if we're being honest, it's obvious that the majority of these male authors present women in the light they perceive women to be, or in the light they deem is fit for a woman. I was provoked while reading the book again yesterday.
Women have a life outside the kitchen, birthing and raising children. Inasmuch as that book was written years ago, there are a thousand and one men out there who attribute these jobs solely to women and it doesn't sit well with me.
Women can raise good conversations and hold it, women can have a good business discourse, etc. Women are not to be confined to the four walls of a house, we're pretty much human just as the male gender is. We have hands, legs, the same amount of fingers, and of course a brain that in my honest opinion works better than that of the male gender.<rudeness isn't intended here
Most times, I don't like reading books written by men because when I read, I read to be entertained, I read to learn new things, I read to be inspired but many male works instead make me delve into scrutiny. I find myself not enjoying the book but criticizing every part that portrays women as feeble creatures. We don't lack strength of character.
I know the world is slowly coming to this agreement, slowly, but I know men who are very dogmatic about this. I mean I saw one post on Twitter/X a few days ago where this dude was employed as a driver and in his terms of rendering services, he clearly stated that he can't and won't drive a woman. Dude had just one job, to drive, but somehow because of dogma and some flimsy creed, he lost his damn job.
It's pathetic reading stories where women have to fight for a man's love. My heart bleeds when all she has to do is cook for him to prove how worthy of a wife she can be. Why can't his turn-on be her hitting him up with strategic business ideas and mind teasing questions?
Cooking is a skill one should acquire for the love of it, or for the fact that one can't go without food. As a minimalist, I'd say I cook because it'll help me cut down on the expense of paying a chef. I don't cook, or should I say I didn't learn to cook because I wanted to impress some dude somewhere. I did because; one, I love cooking, two, I love eating, three, I don't really fancy eating out.
Onto caring and raising children, if I'm to bring a touch of religion into this, I guess, we were asked to be fruitful and multiply but then again, if we're being the rational beings we were made to be, we should all figure out that we've multiplied way too much. The figures of the world population are literally crying.
It is high time male authors stopped attributing all these delusional characteristics to women cause it sucks.
XOXO ✨