DOUBLE JEOPARDY #StateOfMyMind

Last Night, I blogged about suicide as a part of starting this #StateOfMyMind campaign on social media. Today, I want to speak up here for women, about Self Esteem and how much the state of our minds shapes it. I will be using a borrowed theory to better address it, and as I love to do, bring it to life with a scenario or two.

I’d also like to give credit to one of my favorite lecturers, Dr. Mumuni Abu or more fondly known as Sheik, for setting my thinking down this path. It was he who presented a scenario in class one day, using the theory of Double Jeopardy (a variation of it) to explain. It was a discussion on risky sexual behavior and the chain effects or causal chain of a dangerous state of mind. 

Double Jeopardy is a behavioral theory or law initially used more in predicting marketing behavior, and also something that came up in the practice of criminal law as well (Double Jeopardy is a protection for an accused to ensure that the person is not tried more than once for the same crime). However I am bringing it more into sexual reproductive behavior.    

Going through marketing and criminal law, and adapting this theory, I can generally explain it as; A case where one volatile position, brings on another volatile position as it’s consequence or effect, leaving the individual burdened with multiple problems. This may appear a bit far removed from what you find in marketing or criminal law, but it is pretty much the same idea. The reason why I chose to talk about this as a part of the #StateOfMyMind campaign is that death is tragic, yes (and suicide is hard to deal with either as the one having suicidal thoughts, or one who has lost a loved one to suicide). 

But there are other tragedies that could be much worse than death; the tragedy of a tormented life. Torment from low self-esteem that leaves your mind constantly belittling you and writing you off as good for nothing, and the torment of actions we have little control over because they are informed by that very case of low self-esteem.

My social media experience has both shocked (not the good kind) me and pleased me. I am shocked a lot of the time at how quick we are in giving labels and tags without stopping to think of the person upon which we are placing this label or tag. A few days ago I saw a tweet that said;

When I was in middle school the popular girl

was having sex with the mailman and cable guy

and she was freaking 12! Hoe had 5 kids by 24. 

Do you see how this person thinks through how he told that story? The girl was 12…and was having sex with two grown up guys.  Next sentence started with ‘hoe’.  ‘Hoe’ because as at 12 she was already having sex, right? WRONG! She was 12! 12 years old! And two men! Were having sex! With a 12 year old! Which part of that is not rape? Where are those two men? And if she is now 24 and has five kids, it is all because she is a ‘hoe’? 

Did you stop to consider, that her premature exposure to sex, and her wrong perception of it left her in a state of mind that led her to make poor decisions? 

Did you not stop to think that had those two men (and God knows how many other men took advantage of her) been responsible enough to offer her help instead, she would have gone on to live her dreams, have choices, and if those choices involved having 5 kids by 24, it would have been her choice, and so she’d be in the right mental frame to handle that choice? 

Did you not stop to think that abuse scars children, robs them of healthy development? Did you not stop to think what you can do to help? 

Did it even cross your mind, that you are part of the problem? How you speak, and make such women feel? So they can’t see themselves in any other light but the shade of ‘hoe’ and they keep on hurting themselves.

That is an example of double jeopardy. It may not necessarily be sexual abuse. Verbal abuse and neglect could also push children down a terrible path to adulthood. They become damaged adults, and it manifests itself in so many ways. 

We are sadly in an age so concerned about physical looks and ‘smartness’ that, young women look in the mirror and start labeling themselves, “My belly is fat” “I no pap” “My body count has reached two digits, I’m a hoe” “I am born one” “I am fat” “I am too skinny” “I’m too dark” “I’m not smart” and on and on… so much so that unconsciously we rate ourselves and that rating determines how much ‘bullshit’ we take. We settle for less, or do not pursue greatness because we feel inadequate, unloved.

I have witnessed so many social media fights where people quickly resort to rubbishing physical looks to get to whoever they are fighting with. Why? How is that helping our society? Most of the time I look at these people fighting, I look at their pictures and I go like; “you are all beautiful, what is this?” and most of the time it is a woman doing this to another woman, back and forth. Where are we headed? Women…where are we headed?

There are women who would stay in an abusive relationship because they feel that should they let those partners go, no one else would want them; that they are lucky someone wants them though they are of ‘low quality’. Is that not double jeopardy? To think you are of a low grade, and then as a result to settle for something hurtful and damaging because it is all you can get? To not go up on stage because you are ‘fat’ and so you settle for backstage; an office job you hate because over there no one will see you, and you take comfort in food, and eat unhealthily, pushing you deeper and deeper into obesity, severe obesity, and then to morbid obesity, hurting yourself because of the state of your mind? Something in our orientation as we grew up making us think being single is a disease and so we have got to cure ourselves at all cost? Is that not why a woman with low self-esteem will stay on with an abusive partner. Because no one else will have her after? 

MUST YOU BE HAD BY ANYONE TO BE A WOMAN? NO! Leave, learn to love yourself, learn to see beautiful inside out in that mirror, and take up your dreams, passions, let all the negativity go, cry yourself weak sometimes, heal, oh do heal! And then your eyes will clear up, you will know your worth, you will take care of yourself, and should some good person come your way, who would genuinely love you, you let them in. Unlearning what our experiences and exposure have taught us is not easy. Let the wrong people go, keep the right people around you; the ones who will help you learn love right, relationships right, intimacy right, life right.

We should know better, and if not, learn as we go, that labels are damaging. Be careful what you say to people. And please, please, do not take advantage of vulnerable people. That girl you and your boys-boys have tagged as ‘loose’ and so have made plans to all ‘hit’, and then you turn around and tell the entire world what you did, and dust off your shirt and call her a hoe. Stop to think of what you did, and then reconsider the labeling. 

What we can do to help is to be conscious of what shapes the mind and consequently people’s actions. Let us, in our own little corners, make a conscious effort to not contribute to damaging mind sets, and when we can help set already damaged people on the right course, let us do so. Be aware, be conscious. It will save lives, it will make a better tomorrow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Amma Konadu is a young poet, writer, blogger and literary enthusiast. She was an English Major in The University of Ghana and is currently doing her postgrad studies at the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana. Her research interests are in Gender, Religion and Sexual Reproductive Health and Risk Issues. She blogs personally at ammakonadu.wordpress.com, is the editor-in-chief and runs a book review column at theampedhub.com and co-runs a Christian Women Blog at c2bghana.WordPress.com