An African woman, is a beautiful woman, a quality woman, not a quantity woman …these are part of the lyrics to the song ‘African Woman’ by Jommenes in praise of the attributes of African women. I love this song; so don’t misunderstand me, but I find it ironical because in today’s world, the beauty of a woman is precisely determined by her quantity – the quantity of breasts, hips, posterior, tummy, the list is endless - and not any other inner attributes that she may possess.
The various body parts of a woman are considered excellent, very good, good, fair, average or lacking, depending on their sizes. It is how big or small is her posterior? How about her hips? How thick and long is her hair? What size are her breasts? Are her toes small and shapely or are they huge and blotchy? Everywhere, size and quantity are being used to appraise women and their beauty.
But of course no one admits to this. People will always give you this line, ‘For me, what matters first and foremost is the inner beauty and the inner person; you know, someone can be beautiful on the outside but inside they are nothing.’ My response to this – absolute and utter nonsense. If we actually judged people by their inner beauty, so many people would not be where they are today. It is their looks that have got them there.
While men do get judged by their looks, it is women who are the main victims. So, what is a beautiful woman and especially in our context, a beautiful African woman? Okot p’Bitek in his much acclaimed Poem, ‘The song of Lawino’ addresses this issue among the many other issues raised in this epic. The book discusses the issues facing a liberated Africa which vary from religion to culture and traditions.
Lawino’s husband, Ocol, takes on a second wife, a white woman, and seems to prefer her and her ways to Lawino, who laments her husband’s neglect and changed ways in the poem. In one part of the poem, she compares the beauty of the African woman to that of the European describing the African woman as voluptuous with thick lips so that when she kisses her beloved, he will not forget her kiss. She hits out at her rival, the European co-wife as being unhealthily thin and with thin pale lips.
While in many parts of the world, thin women with just the right amount of flesh in certain key parts are considered beautiful; this is not the case in Jamaica. In Jamaica, big is beautiful, and western ideologies of beauty do not apply there. In fact, it is claimed that some women eat chicken feed to gain weight.
However, the catch here is that you need to be light which has led to many Jamaican women getting all manner of skin conditions due to the usage of dangerous chemicals to bleach their faces. This has become such a serious issue that the Jamaican government has actually instituted a campaign against use of facial lighteners which also aims at encouraging Jamaicans to accept themselves just as they are.
Now, I understand that there is a limit to how much we can say size does not matter. Obesity is on the rise especially in the developed world; even among children. But for the majority of people, there size does not pose a health risk, maybe a fashion one.
It is unfortunate that young women are suffering from diseases such as anorexia and bulimia just to be considered beautiful when in reality there is nothing wrong with them and these are beautiful women in every sense of the word. Others are going for elective surgeries, having silicon implanted into their breasts, their hips and behinds sliced up to be reduced and liposuction on their stomachs and thighs all in the name of attaining the desired image.
As women, we need to realize that no matter how much we try, we will never look perfect to everyone. Someone will always want us to have a little bit more or a little bit less in certain areas. We must define what is beautiful to us and refuse to be forced into the box; after all, what makes the world an interesting place to live in is its diversity.
Imagine what kind of world it would be if all the women were tall and the famed shape of 36-24-36 and all the men were 6 ft tall, handsome and with a firm six pack? Where would the fun and uniqueness be? More importantly, I am genuinely worried that the Barbie doll is becoming personified by women all over the world and we may soon have a world of Barbies!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
The jungle of modern dating!
For those who are still bidding their time in looking for the perfect mate, this piece is a wake up call for them. First, the bible states clearly that there will be no marriage in heaven, and for very good reasons too which I will expound in a short while. Now, if that is the case, and Kenya’s life expectancy is below 50 years, then anyone above the age of 25 and hopes to get married but is dilly dallying in the hope of capturing the elusive soul mate need to up their game now.
Let me substantiate my earlier statement about no marriage in heaven. There is this time the Pharisees, in an attempt to test Jesus, came to him with a hypothetical situation. The story was of a woman who marries a man and he dies before he can sire any children with her; consequently, the man’s brother marries the woman to continue his dead brother’s lineage. Unfortunately, the second brother dies without giving the woman any children and a third brother steps in to save the family tree, but he too dies. This goes on until the last brother, the seventh, also dies without having any children with the woman. Thinking themselves very clever, the Pharisees then posed to Jesus this question, “when the woman dies and she eventually gets to heaven, whose wife will she be?” And that is where Jesus makes the shocking revelation, at least to the Pharisees, that there will be no marriage in heaven.
The process of getting a suitable spouse in today’s world in a laborious uphill task that only the brave and strong of heart should dare to attempt. The golden old days when men were serious and lived up to their responsibilities are today buried in the annals of history. In those days, a man did not engage in casual sex and go sowing his wild oats all over. If you made a girl pregnant out of wedlock, then you lived up to your responsibility and married her and helped her to raise your child. And such a man did not go wandering to other women in the name of love; he faced the consequences of his action like a true man. I guess circumcision actually meant something at that time. It distinguished the men from the boys.
In the modern world, dating has become a very complex and ruthless affair and those getting into the arena need to have properly girded themselves for a bruising battle. To begin with, there is the vicious cycle which is part of Mother Nature; Jane wants John but John wants Catherine. Unfortunately, Catherine couldn’t care less about John, she is pining for Michael and the story goes on. It is almost miraculous for two people to actually want each other at the exact same given period in time. And what is even more distressing is that most people, when they are lucky enough for the miracle to happen to them, don’t realize that the probabilities are set against them and they go ahead to do a pretty good job of messing up things.
One of the most constant complaints I hear from my girlfriends is that there are simply no husband material men. Today’s men have become exotic sportsmen and hunters with the prey being as many girls as they can lay their hands on. The women too cannot be absolved from blame with the increasing attitude of ‘two can play the game’ urging them on. As a result, we have a harem going on.
Then of course there is the very tedious process of trying to vet a potential spouse and nowadays there are just so many bad behaviours and mannerisms out there that the check list and vetting procedure is closer to a dissertation than a list. And even when you get a prospective, you still have to deal with those who argue that nothing is final till death and will not accept their loss in love graciously.
Musical diva Whitney Houston who sang the song “Where do broken hearts go” may have to re-edit the song because today’s broken hearts heal at an amazing speed. You dump your boyfriend over SMS today and next week you are head over heels in love with another man. C’est la vie.
The more I think about dating today, the more the match making that used to be done by parents in the past era seems attractive. And for the future generation, we should start not only match making but marrying them at birth and then monitoring them and we may save a lot of people a lot of problems.
Let me substantiate my earlier statement about no marriage in heaven. There is this time the Pharisees, in an attempt to test Jesus, came to him with a hypothetical situation. The story was of a woman who marries a man and he dies before he can sire any children with her; consequently, the man’s brother marries the woman to continue his dead brother’s lineage. Unfortunately, the second brother dies without giving the woman any children and a third brother steps in to save the family tree, but he too dies. This goes on until the last brother, the seventh, also dies without having any children with the woman. Thinking themselves very clever, the Pharisees then posed to Jesus this question, “when the woman dies and she eventually gets to heaven, whose wife will she be?” And that is where Jesus makes the shocking revelation, at least to the Pharisees, that there will be no marriage in heaven.
The process of getting a suitable spouse in today’s world in a laborious uphill task that only the brave and strong of heart should dare to attempt. The golden old days when men were serious and lived up to their responsibilities are today buried in the annals of history. In those days, a man did not engage in casual sex and go sowing his wild oats all over. If you made a girl pregnant out of wedlock, then you lived up to your responsibility and married her and helped her to raise your child. And such a man did not go wandering to other women in the name of love; he faced the consequences of his action like a true man. I guess circumcision actually meant something at that time. It distinguished the men from the boys.
In the modern world, dating has become a very complex and ruthless affair and those getting into the arena need to have properly girded themselves for a bruising battle. To begin with, there is the vicious cycle which is part of Mother Nature; Jane wants John but John wants Catherine. Unfortunately, Catherine couldn’t care less about John, she is pining for Michael and the story goes on. It is almost miraculous for two people to actually want each other at the exact same given period in time. And what is even more distressing is that most people, when they are lucky enough for the miracle to happen to them, don’t realize that the probabilities are set against them and they go ahead to do a pretty good job of messing up things.
One of the most constant complaints I hear from my girlfriends is that there are simply no husband material men. Today’s men have become exotic sportsmen and hunters with the prey being as many girls as they can lay their hands on. The women too cannot be absolved from blame with the increasing attitude of ‘two can play the game’ urging them on. As a result, we have a harem going on.
Then of course there is the very tedious process of trying to vet a potential spouse and nowadays there are just so many bad behaviours and mannerisms out there that the check list and vetting procedure is closer to a dissertation than a list. And even when you get a prospective, you still have to deal with those who argue that nothing is final till death and will not accept their loss in love graciously.
Musical diva Whitney Houston who sang the song “Where do broken hearts go” may have to re-edit the song because today’s broken hearts heal at an amazing speed. You dump your boyfriend over SMS today and next week you are head over heels in love with another man. C’est la vie.
The more I think about dating today, the more the match making that used to be done by parents in the past era seems attractive. And for the future generation, we should start not only match making but marrying them at birth and then monitoring them and we may save a lot of people a lot of problems.
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