Women hold up half the sky

Women hold up half the sky.

-          Chinese Proverb

This proverb goes to tell how important women are in the development of the world, and this write up is an attempt to look at the extent to which deeply entrenched pronatalist thinking robs us of the potential of a large number of women; potential that would have served to develop humans and economies.

Pronatalism is an attitude or policy that is pro-birth, that encourages reproduction and exalts the role of parenthood above a number of things, thus making being a parent a measure of value, especially for women.

What I’d like to make clear before moving on is that this does not mean that a non-pronatalist society is against reproduction and parenthood, but that they do not see those as markers of success, wealth, or value, of humans.

Coming home to Ghana, women carry the weight of a pronatalist-minded society and have been suffering under it for years, bringing along with it so much deep-seated corruption, one does not know where to begin to mend things. Let me break this down.

1.      THERE ARE TWO REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEMS INVOLVED!

It is interesting to note that, should a couple be married for a while (beyond two years, mostly) and haven’t had a child yet, questioning eyes quickly turn to the woman. The husband himself may first of all question the woman, and demand that she gets checked up (not that they both should get checked up). 

We forget that making babies involves the reproductive systems of both the man, and the woman. The forgetfulness has been passed on from generation to generation, the sad thing is that even some women themselves forget. And so, we carry the weight of a ‘responsibility’ to ensure that babies are made. What does this do to women? We place motherhood on a pedestal and measure our values by it, prioritize this ‘responsibility’ above all else, and bend over backwards to ensure that we join those who society acknowledges as ‘Real women’. I will always say this…pronatalism is the reason why you find that the majority of those who patronize prayer camp and camps of herbalists and spiritualists, are women. Why? It will surprise you to find out the most reported ‘problem’ by these women are ‘childlessness’ and ‘delayed marriage’. 

The frenzy to be married before or by a certain age is related to their ‘biological clock’. They need to be married at or by that age so they can have children. They are not fulfilled if these do not happen. So you find women of good health, working age, of zero productivity to their own selves, and to the community, the country, because they spend almost all their waking hours, either in prayer camps, or moving from herbal doctor, to herbal doctor, or from spiritualist to spiritualist. A lot of money goes into such endeavours too. So at the end of the day, there is zero contribution to  development, from these women (whereas they would have contributed massively, otherwise).

2.      HIS CHROMOSOMES, NOT MINE!

Now let’s assume a woman marries, and starts having children. There is another burden the woman carries even when she isn’t unmarried by a certain age, or childless after years of marriage. This burden is the sex of the children she bears. I did a bit of work on sex-selective abortion (in Azerbaijan) and female infanticide, sometime last year, and it brought out the stark reality of our misconceptions.

From since I was old enough to understand certain things, it is the woman who is questioned, when all the children she has had, are the same sex. It is much worse when all the children she has had are girls. There are, and have been, instances where the man’s family brings another woman in, who supposedly is to come in to bear him sons. I get a headache just thinking about the extent of this generational ignorance in many parts of the world.

The sex of a child is determined by two chromosomes, X and Y. A female is XX, a male is XY. Since women have no Y choromosome, they always contribute an X chromosome to the baby. The sex is determined by whether the sperm that fertilizes the egg is carrying another X or a Y.

So all these cases where another woman is imposed on a couple to bear the man sons, gives me sleepless nights! If we are bent on placing ‘senseless’ blames, we have been daft for too long then, placing the blame on the woman, making the woman have more children than she truly desires just so she can have another sex, or in the case of sex-selective abortion, making a woman feel compelled to abort a particular sex, and go through the trauma of it, when she has nothing to do with the sex of the child.

Now let me make this clear before I’m misconstrued, I am only bringing out this whole ‘it’s not a woman’s chromosome that’s responsible business’ because of this weight that is on women due to ignorance. This is not a call for a blame shift, for even if it were our chromosomes, do we handpick them ourselves, or it is a natural, biological process? And so seeing now that it is not even our chromosomes in the first place, the point is, it is the man’s, yes, but does he do sii sii sii (eenie meenie miney mo) during the process? NO! So even they the carriers of the determinant of a child’s sex, CANNOT AND MUST NOT BE BLAMED! 

It is heartbreaking to see what goes on over clear ignorance! The contribution of this craze to maternal and child mortality, to an increase of maternal-related average number of years lived with disability (taking post-birth chronic debilitating conditions into consideration), is disturbing, to say the least. Really, I could go on and on, but let me stop here.

3.      FAMILY PLANNING.

The Ghana Demographic Health Survey in 2008 estimated that contraceptive usage among married women decreased from 19% to 17%, which translated to 123,000 married women at risk of unintended pregnancies. 

Motherhood, or parenting in general, is (supposed to be) a selfless act. Making the decision to have children demands a lot of sacrifice, including, for the woman, putting yourself at risk of a number of complications that contribute to maternal mortality. Considering the health of women, plus the health of the children being born should be priority in deciding how many children you’d want to have, when you’d start having them, and how you’d space the births, as a couple. This brings in contraceptives, which are available as aids to whatever plan a couple settle on, that puts both mother and the children planned to be had, under minimal risks. 

Sometime last year, I attended a community workshop on Marital Rape, in Jamestown. My heart hurt, hearing the women open up about how difficult it is to have their fertility needs met (I use fertility here in the technical demographic sense). Some of the revelations were that some of them were unable to enjoy post-partum abstinence, which doesn’t only ensure that they are fully healed and ready for sex with their spouses after childbirth, but also serves as a traditional contraceptive method.

They added that some husbands would force themselves on their nursing wives barely a week after delivery (whether vaginal delivery or caesarian). Some husbands would order their wives to discontinue breastfeeding (for the reason that it is interferes with their ‘sexual needs’). Prolonged breastfeeding promotes good health of the child, as well as post-partum amenorrhea (which is another natural contraceptive). 

Some husbands do not allow their wives to be on contraceptives, some women themselves are against any contraceptive at all be it modern or traditional. There have been a lot of brainwashing against the use of them. I remember reading a tweet in which the person said she was shocked to find a large crowd gathered somewhere in town with someone giving a talk on how usage of contraceptives equals murdering children. There are too many myths surrounding family planning. I mean, look at what this person was saying against it. Basically, family planning checks the number of children born, and that doesn’t sound pleasant in the ears of a society soaked neck-deep in pronatalism. Therefore, family planning becomes an evil thing, an enemy of ‘progress’ that must be frustrated into inaction. Pronatalist, because the health of the woman is not priority, not even the health of the children being born, really. It is the idea of having the children, that’s it. Really, because

High fertility (number of children ever born to a woman) has a strong relationship with child mortality. This is because a child born 18/fewer months after the birth of a previous child has three times the chance of dying from one complication or other, compared to one born after 2-3 years’. Children born to women nearing the close of the average reproductive years of 15-49 are also at risk of complications, some of which leave lifetime effects to be dealt with.

So what is important to us? The wellbeing of the woman? Or she has become an object of reproduction and that is all that matters?

There have been a lot of policies put in place to work towards the reduction of the total fertility rates of developing countries. A lot of these policies concentrate on family planning – the availability and accessibility of them. There have been extreme policies like the one-child policy in China (now up to One family, Two children) which was strongly enforced to inhuman levels, a lot of the time. Some have focused on putting more girls in school, etc. In our part of the world, a lot of work has to be done to change mindsets, demystify reproduction, roles in there, reproductive health, etc. More women will channel their potentials to the development of themselves and their community, fertility will decline, creating a demographic dividend that the country can take advantage of. We underestimate the contribution of women to development, we underestimate the potential. We have misplaced priorities. 

Women do hold up half the sky, and there is so much, so much rot that is sitting on how much more women can hold up. Too many women are buried under it. 

The question then is, how do we begin to dig ourselves back up? The sky is falling. 

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