“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord”, A popular saying among men, when their stand is no longer that convincing and the tide is not going their way. It is most men’s backup stand, which mostly sends the message that; at this point it is no longer about the reasonable space but about the fact that men are superior and women should submit to his stand without question, either wrong or right.
This Situation not only defines the home, but also the society at large. Do women really have a voice? If they do, to what point before the society brings out the age long saying, “You’re a woman”.
The role of the modern woman in the society is one that has come under the microscope of late, are women given equal rights as men?, what about the unwritten rules of the society? While we might be quick to say yes or no, recent incidents might actually answer the lot, from comments made about women being meant for the kitchen and other rooms alone to the untold stories of sexual abuses experienced by women.
Primordial settings of women not having equal rights as men, needs a swift change, from religious bylaws allowing men to have more than one wife, but if the tables were turned, will two men marry a single woman in the same house, well that would be madness for the society but for a man to do so, it would be okay, also to the basic educational rights still denied girls in some rural and even urban parts of the world, simply because they are women.
Many organisations and activists has risen up of late in the name of feminism and support for todays women who they believe largely are preys to the society when they cross that age long boundary.
The status quo of a woman in the society compared to that of a man is a subject that has lasted ages, with the general consensus always passively agreeing to the fact that men are superior and women are inferior. Thus we have a society already built to the specifications of these ideas, which is now a limiting factor for today’s women who rather than being second rated in the society, education and economic struggles has taught them how to fend for themselves.
Today we have a world where the truth is a woman can do anything a man can do, but with the old illness of the idea that men are superior to women, regardless.
While the fight for equal right is making its stand, the world can only hope it translates to a culture change in the society and how the society treats today’s woman, as it is the way forward for a better world where both men and women have equal rights and are both relatively productive.
By: Oyewole Oluwatofunmi Deborah.
