This is one of those topics I tend to avoid because honestly, I feel it's beneath me. I'm not trying to sound puffed-up or anything, but having conversations about where or not a women's place is in the life of her man sounds backward to me, especially in this time and age. It's funny to think that some men and sadly, a few women too, think that women should be relegated to the kitchen.
One of the reasons why I do not fancy relationship(s) is this irritating sense of entitlement at accompanies it. Falling in love with someone automatically becomes a license to another person's time, will, and emotions, which for me is a very cynical thing. For one, I believe love demands nothing of you. The essence of love, which you must have read in your holy book or a magazine, or watched on television, is simply the willful giving of one's self to or for another, not out of merit or obligation.
Love cannot be coerced. So if someone decides to be part of my life I consider that as a gift because who am I to merit another person's love, time, devotion?
Yesterday on naijapidginwe were having a discussion that somehow tilted towards whether a woman's place is indeed in the kitchen or not. Like I said earlier, this kind of conversations has a way of triggering me.I'm not going into details about what was said because it's irrelevant here. However, I'm perplexed that we still have such conversations though, and it seems many do not even consider the dynamics of relationships, and also, it seems like some men have such fragile egos that cannot accommodate a woman whose dreams and aspirations are bigger than theirs or the sad fact that some women don't even value themselves enough to have such dreams.
My woman's dreams are as valid as mine, she is not designed for my support, we complement each other. This false notion that a woman must cater to a man's ego and play this subservient role in order for her to see as the proverbial good woman is quite ridiculous to me. This is no feminist propaganda, as a matter of fact, I've not come across one I really like because most of them have this sense of entitlement that agitated them so much. But to think that your woman (speaking to the men now) should abandon her dreams and aspiration to cater for yours doesn't only limit her but you as well. What if her dreams are bigger than yours? What if her chances of achieving those dreams are better than yours? Does that demean you as a man or make her less of a woman?
My woman's place is in my heart, not the kitchen. For some reason, this statement might irritate more women than men because they've lived their whole life trying to be what a man wants and here I am disregarding everything they've worked so hard to become--a man's woman. But I'm sorry to disappoint you. I've never fallen in love with a woman because of her culinary skills, neither have left one because of it. Now, instead of trying so hard to decipher what a man wants, trying being the woman you need to be, that way you don't get disappointed, because, in all honesty, we have a lot of disappointed women roaming the streets, angry at men for the choices they've made, the kind of men they've gotten in bed with just to uphold a standard they deemed in the long-run would earn them a place in a man's heart, but forgetting that love itself has never been about merit but choice. And most choices have no logical bearing. So like they say, its a matter of the heart.
You can be so much more than you can imagine. It pains me to see a woman limit herself by way of mortgaging her entire life to a man, just so she can be loved and appreciated, that's too much of a sacrifice. I would be scared if someone did that for me--I won't even let them, that would only be a burden too much for me to bear.
There is no actual way to keep a man who doesn't love you. Being yourself is sufficient enough, that's if he wants to stay. So focus on being the best version of yourself. Like a poet once said:
Walk like a god and your goddess will come to you.
But in this case, I say:
Be a queen and your king will recognize you.
And if he doesn't that's okay, you remain a queen regardless...
