This is a story depicting how things are in some areas in the world. It is true that civilization is spreading and a change is in motion but why do we still have genuine feminists fighting for female rights if things have totally become good?"
Hilda raised the axe and continued to divide the logs of firewood. They had to be ready so that her mother can make dinner before nightfalls.
Theirs was a large family, she wondered why her father still had to marry another wife after having six children by her mother all under the guise of looking for a male child.
Unfortunately for him the second wife had gotten pregnant and she gave birth to two girls. Obi had cried bitterly when he found out. This caused him to hate Nneka his second wife even more than Hilda’s mother. Hilda had to do all the chores as she had very young siblings who couldn’t do strenuous work, this made her more miserable.
As Hilda moved on to the central tap, to fetch water, after splitting firewood, she thought of how her father had regarded himself as unlucky all because he couldn’t get a male child. It was common in her community for men from different tribes to crave for a male child. Her father had almost committed suicide when his second wife gave birth to twin girls. She wondered why her father was so desperate about a male child. She also thought of how her father often treated her mother and herself including the other siblings as if they were choking him.
Her father never goes out to any function with any of his wives, whenever he went out, he would dress like a young bachelor, and because he was blessed with a young stature, he was able to deceive anyone who didn’t know he had a family, that he wasn’t married.
Her father wouldn’t even associate himself with his children either in the house or in public. She remembered when at the school which she attended, her father was invited for a parent teachers association meeting, he had blatantly refused to go. Hilda looked around her and concluded that she was as good as fatherless.
In the evening when Hilda was already through with fetching water and was helping her mother with the cooking, her father walked into the compound. “Good evening” Hilda greeted, since she had no good relationship with him she had found it more satisfying to greet him without adding any form of respect or dad....
“good evening papa Hilda” her mother also greeted.
But as usual her father shouted “what is good about the evening? Why are you just preparing the meal? What have you been doing since afternoon? Why can’t a man come back home at this time of the day and already meet a decent meal? Eh? And by the way where is that lazy buffoon that calls herself my second wife?’’ he looked around as if to find her then he began to shout for her,‘Nneka! Nneka!! Nneka!!!
Shouting from afar “yes my husband I am coming” Nneka answered. She ran outside carrying the twins one on her back and the other in her arms if only she knew what was coming she wouldn’t have.
If not for the intervention of Hilda’s mother, their husband would have hit the twins instead of their mother and he wouldn’t even care because he didn’t like any of them.
“If in the next 30mins my food is not ready all of you will have yourself to blame” he threatened before storming into the house.
Hilda sat down depressingly, this is not the first time her father would behave the way he did in fact it was becoming a daily routine. There had never for once been a happy moment in her family.
“Mother but why should things always be this way? Why must dad frustrate us every day like this” she lamented to her mother.
Hilda's mother, with worry etched all over her face, making her look twice her age she answered her daughter “Hilda I cannot say, all I know is that your father ceased to be the man I married when I gave birth to you and you weren’t a boy and since I have not being able to give him a male child” changing the very depressing mood She continued “come my daughter lets hurry up the cooking before he comes out ” after telling Hilda what to do, she went over to Nneka who was still weeping and consoled her before going back to the meal being prepared...
In some parts of the world, there is still a lot of discrimination against females. A sense of rejection or denial at home and/or at work as well as limitations in career, job opportunities, politics and technology abound. Any suggestions on how to help females move up higher? Any suggestions on how to help females enjoy equality and all round freedom all over the world?