Women=clowns?

“There was something immodest about her modesty : it announced itself .”

Words by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie in her book Americanah that stroke me last night. I was reading very attentively, page by page , as a typical African woman was described:

She was beautiful, kind , cooked & cleaned , respected her husband , entertained his relatives & addressed them with respect. After all her traits were described , “There was something immodest about her modesty : it announced itself .”

At some point , I considered myself a feminist, I thought I was all for women advocation and what they stood for. Then I slowly started resenting feminism , the hypocrisy that comes with women posting “men are trash” , discouraging other women from submitting to men while their boo’d up in their households doing the exact opposite, it disgusted me.

Many women practice way less than they preach . Leading masses towards a direction they never follow themselves. I slowly started detaching myself from feminism till I found myself saying “ I hate feminism” . Misogynistic much? Maybe. I will not go into detail with my rant about feminism but I also began to detest how feminism became less about fighting for equality & more about fighting men hence why just like I did , many men hate feminism.

“There was something immodest about her modesty : it announced itself .”

I didn’t want to read the next words , I didn’t want to understand why a woman whose going above and beyond , shrinking herself and being societies “perfect” idea of what a woman should be was being referred to like this.

Most women believe in-order to be the “marriage type “ or “a decent woman” one has to behave a certain way , dress a certain way & never overshadow a man in order to be accepted by society as the perfect woman.

“Well behaved women seldom make history “ -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

What history will be made by silencing your voice and being too modest in your immodesty ? When will we teach our girls that there’s more to life than being validated by men? Last night I dug a little more into the Suffragettes (women who fought for the right to vote ) . These ladies are a perfect example of women who went against all odds, defying society’s standards, being battered & beat up , incarcerated ,ashamed & dejected but THEY MADE HISTORY.

Nowadays some women are either out there trying to be too perfect so they can be accepted by men or selling themselves short so they can get a mans attention.

My message for all young girls out there is please stop thirsting for validation from men. Stop doing things that are out of character to try keep a man , stop silencing your own voice and acting like you’re not an individual on your own to boost a mans ego. This post isn’t an attack to men , don’t get me wrong .

Men have the greatest self love, they hardly cut themselves short or burn themself out to try prove their worthy of marriage. I remember a thread that was trending on twitter were women were sharing their clown stories, DOING THINGS OUT OF CHARACTER TO KEEP A MAN.

Teach your girls self love , teach them to respect & appreciate themselves before yearning to be appreciated by men. Teach them how to hold their head up high and say no , how to stand by an opinion they believe in & not fear intimidating anyone. Don’t paint their faces at a young age & let them grow accustomed to clownery! A girls name is not “babe , sweetheart or cutie” don’t normalize shriveling women by sugar coated slurs.

Some of societies problems come from the fact that girls don’t love themselves. Lack of self love by women is causing a lot of them to dim their own light & render themselves insignificant lest validated by a man. We live in a world were a woman will cut off every female in her life just to show a man she will do anything to keep him in her life.

A woman’s idea of love should not involve idolizing a man and diminishing herself . A woman shouldn’t have to be the illuminating object for a man. Men and women can coexist without one canceling out another. One can love and respect her man all while receiving the same and not being diluted in the mix.

No one should have to be a clown , not for love , not for validation & certainly not for societies standards, life is not a circus . Like I said , I’m not attacking men, I’m not saying all women are like this but to the woman who is :

Wake up , speak up & love yourself.