Dear African Feminists Worry Not: You Do Not Come With An Expiry Date

As a woman there is a lot to be worried about. There is rape, domestic violence and the numerous sexist comments to mention a few. As a Black African woman, the things to worry about become even messier as Black African women are Black, African and Woman in a world that undervalues all three identities.

As African women we are faced with what I call “The Doubled Euro-African Misogyny”. This refers to the fact that African women in addition to facing the sexism of African cultures, also experience remnants of sexism left by our colonial masters. These include the hyper obsession for women to be domesticated and more marriage minded brought by European Victorian values.

Personally, as an African feminist everyday I try to unlearn the fear surrounding being single. To put it simply, each day I encourage myself to never think my decision to be a feminist is a bad decision especially if I am unmarried at a particular age. I have to tell myself this because I live in a society where if a woman is not married she is looked down on. This gets worse if she is an outspoken woman or in my case, a feminist.

People would be quick to use her as an example to other women who want to toe her path. They would be quick to say things like: “If not for her strong head she would be married” or “She’s doing feminism at thirty when her mates are counting their children”.

Women were not created with an expiry date in mind. We are like fine wine, we only get better with time. This is regardless of concepts like “biological clock” which exist only to scare us into settling with incapable men just because we want to be mothers.

You see, as women we are raised to measure our worth by our closeness to men and by how much we can use our bodies to labour for men. We are praised for being unquestioning wives and for being women who are willing to be mothers even in great biological distress. We are not to complain about housework or our fear of childbirth otherwise someone would remind us that there would always be a “younger” “fresher” woman willing to cater to a man.

This brings me to the title of my article. Women were not created with an expiry date in mind. We are like fine wine, we only get better with time. This is regardless of concepts like “biological clock” which exist only to scare us into settling with incapable men just because we want to be mothers. Again, as a woman, there is no set age for you to fulfill your dreams and find happiness. Are we together?

The danger with planning your romantic life with an age in mind is that if at the particular age you set for marriage, there is no one, you end up feeling like a failure.

I am saying this because I’ve seen too many girls plan their lives around hypothetical husbands and age based marriages. I’ve seen and heard girls give up dreams of becoming doctors because they are afraid it would take too many years of study and they won’t find husbands. The danger with planning your romantic life with an age in mind is that if at the particular age you set for marriage there is no one, you end up feeling like a failure. Even if a husband does come at that age, there is a tendency for you to feel like your sacrifice is a waste especially if the said husband is not worth your sacrifices and most times men are not worth sacrificing for.

To wrap up if there is one thing I’d want my fellow African feminists who would read this to know, it is that in this life, you don’t need anyone’s approval to live your life. I know it is very difficult because as women we are socialised to live on likability but truth is you don’t need the partnering of a man to feel happy. This is because you are the captain of your own happiness. Focus on finding out the things you love and doing them constantly. This is me wishing you all the love and light you need to wade through life.

Till next time.

Photo Credit: J.D Okhai Ojeikere.