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Why are we raising women with the ultimate goal of being wifed?

I chanced on a WhatsApp status where a young woman was giving herself accolades and it somehow ended in her expressing joy and pride at being ‘someone’s future wife’. I use ‘joy’ here, for lack of a better word. However, it was more along the lines of her seeing being a wife as the ultimate prize for her womanhood.   Now, this is not an isolated case; it would be much easier if it were. Then it could be related to personal aspirations and goals. Of course, each one of us is different and we have different hopes and wants and desires. However, this happens way too many times to be attributed to personal wishes alone. I have seen a lot of women express this need to achieve the ultimate; to get to the climax of womanhood. Unfortunately, this climax of womanhood, to many, is being a wife. It is never anything else.    This begs the question; why? Of all the things a woman can aspire to be, why is it always ‘a wife’?  Again, to be clear, it is not wrong for one to aspire to be a wife if it
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Rape Is Not Just Sex. It Is a Crime of Power and You Don’t Tell Victims To ‘Just Get Over It.’

Photo Credit: Vox.com What most people do not understand is that rape is not something you just ‘get over’. No, it does not work that way. When the choice of consent is snatched from beneath you, it is a violation of not just your body but your mind too. Rape, is like a robbery in which something is taken forcefully from you with every unconsented thrust. Yet unlike robbery where items taken can be replaced, rape takes away parts of you that can never be replaced, only learned to live with. When a person is raped, it isn’t just the body that has been invaded but also the mind. And this unwarranted invasion can lead to a thrashing of a person’s mental health. Walls get broken and victims without the right help and counselling may never get around to becoming who they used to be. Their present comes to a standstill and the future turns to gloom. Some dire psychological effects of this violation may even be that victims may be broken to such abysmal levels that they acce
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This Is The Realest Letter Ever Written To Older Sisters

Dear Older Sisters and Friends with children, Don't get offended when we refuse to babysit your kids because truth be told, we are not obliged to. It is neither our duty nor responsibility. Matter of fact, it is a favour we do you. We want to believe you had this whole parenting thing figured out before you dug into it so it’s quite unfair that you drag us along and expect us to just go with the flow. We love you, honestly, but we have got our own lives to live—many impromptu dates to go on, a lot of sleeping to do, and basically a lot of yes-I’m-busy-doing-nothing-whatchu-gonna-do-about-that phases to go through, and to think that we ought to put all these very important twenty-something-year time of life on hold just to listen to incessant wailing and play houses? No. We’re sorry, it’s just not how we imagined our future to shape out. And don’t even get us started on the you’re-also-gonna-have-kids-someday-and-imma-be-there-for-you shid. Hell you might not even b
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Sista Clinik’s Ultimate Heartbreak Playlist for Women Going Through a Breakup

Photo Courtesy: Lovepanky.com Warning: This could get depressing, but oh, what the heck?! The pain is real. Like that kind of pain you feel when you accidentally hit your finger whiles hammering a nail into a wall. Or when a heavy door slams into four of your fingers without warning. Or when your baby toe accidentally hits something hard and won’t stop hitting into things at the exact spot of first injury throughout the rest of the day. You get the picture. Heartbreak is pain plus sorrow plus anger plus a little bit (maybe a lot) of insanity. Sometimes it feels like breath is being squeezed out of you or that someone pulled a plastic bag over your head. Almost every woman has experienced heartbreak—some many times more than others. For those who go scarred deepest and in the most repetitive of ways, every day is an emotional struggle. Dealing with men becomes a task executed with extra precaution because every man becomes a suspect, only in this case, guilty unti
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“I have been both a victim of sexual abuse and most recently, rape.” Read Maureen Alikor’s Story and Her Campaign on Demystifying Abuse.

Photo: Maureen Alikor On the 16th of November 2016, my door was forced open by armed robbers who immediately striped us of all our devices and valuables. Myself and a friend. With a gun to our head, we were commanded to strip. We did. Yes, we were raped at gun point. All our pleas fell on deaf ears as they had their way, and left. Few minutes later, mobile policemen and neighbors began to converge in their neighborly pattern; in twos and threes, with folded arms, solemn looks, bowed heads and pitiful eyes; with much “sorry” and “take heart” to give, and curses intended to follow the rapists/armed robbers. But soon they left in their trickles. Fast forward to the next morning, neighbors and sympathizers converged yet again, and started dishing out various kinds of words of encouragement and advice on what to do; ranging from taking my pants to prayer altars so as to lay curses on the culprits, to burying the panties thereby burying their destinies. Others said, to
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