Are you crazy?!!!!

Stepping outside my friend’s gate as we went to the supermarket, a car was parked a few meters ahead of us and inside, was a man and girl slapping each other. At first I thought it was some sort of a lover’s play, until we passed them. They were actually fighting. Or rather, the man was beating up the girl, inside the car, and she just sat there, like a stuffed turkey, not even bothering to scream or shout. “Sometimes you wish to intervene,” my friend said, “but it seems they are used to it. If she needed help she would be shouting or screaming, or at least get out of the car and if the man chases after her, we can deal with him.”

Really? I wondered. My friend was a man and the female chauvinist in me was ready to jump to the defence of female kind but I let it go. He said that we might just step in to save the girl only for us to be caught in the middle with both the girl and her man attacking you for interfering with their lives. Read Moliere’s play A Doctor In spite of Himself for a classic example.

A month prior to that, we were walking down Nakumatt Uhuru Highway with the same friend when a man started fighting with a lady he claimed he was together with. A crowd gathered because the girl denied that she was with him. The man was grabbing her bag and her but the lady was not making a spirited effort to fight off the man; in fact she almost seemed to be negotiating with him. My friend suggested that the lady was lying; otherwise why did she still stand there and engage the man in a heated argument? If a man or woman whom you don't know stops you in the middle of town and starts pulling at your bag don't you scream THIEF!? I was tempted to argue but once again, I held my tongue and how glad I am that I did not do my characteristic thing and rally to the defence of these women.

An hour later, back to the lovers in the car story, we came back to the flats. The car was now parked next to the black gate. The man was seated sullen, chin propped on his knuckles, elbow on the open driver’s window staring out of his car. The girl was seated still in the same car, buckled up, staring in the opposite direction at the outside world through the passenger window. How is one beaten in a car then sit with her assailant in the car sulking at each other?

“You see!” A much vindicated friend said. “If we had interfered we would have been the ones in trouble. That girl didn’t want to be rescued.” And unfortunately, he was absolutely right.

That got me irate. Women, women, women! When shall we be liberated if we believe to be physically assaulted is part of the love game? That to be slapped and have your hair pulled out in public is part of life? That to have your clothes torn off in the middle of Moi Avenue on a Monday lunchtime has to be forgiven because it’s love anyway and naturally lovers fight? With women like these, the war is half lost, we don't even need men to condemn us, we have condemned ourselves already.

If a man slaps you, scream. That is not love. Run, that is not normal. Never see him again; it isn’t an ‘I am sorry’ situation. Never pick his calls, it isn’t a ‘I just lost it please forgive me’ kind of thing. How many end up dead in a morgue, beaten to a faceless pulp, by the men they claim loved them to death? It all starts with a slap and a forgiveness, giving the chance for a repeat that grows more and more violent and you never realise he is a killer till you are the one in the news as “A woman was hacked with a panga by her irate husband/boyfriend/lover.”

Some say that their cultures dictate they be beaten as a sign of love. Wait till you are in hospital with fatal injuries, we will see where that culture will be to heal you. Why do we allow our reasoning to be done by others, yet we are the ones who feel the pains and even die?

Some say they persevere because of the children. Will your corpse feed them when you are dead from ‘a knock inflicted by a blunt object’ like a rolling pin?

And as for the gold diggers who are too lazy to work for their own money and are afraid that if they run from the man they won’t have anyone to feed them, give them that posh limousine ride their friends so envy and take them to posh hotels, all I can say is that you are the most stupid person on earth.

Is the money worth the black eye you try to hide every week which you claim is as a result of an unfortunate fall? Deep down your heart it hurts. Deep down your soul you know you feel like a piece of trash. Deep down your conscience you know it is not right. It is not right because you are a beautiful woman, dignified mother, lovely sister who deserves the best. But if you treat yourself as garbage, why would anyone else think you are worth anything?

For women who, like that girl, value the cheap plastic covers of second hand Nissan Sunny cars that they can be slapped and kicked and abused yet refuse to open that door and run, heaven have mercy on your poor souls when you go there prematurely. Me, No one will ever beat me, love or no love.