Why do women bother to change their names on being married?
We would have thought it was enough that there are as many – if not more – women as men in the world. But, as Fate would have it, being born a woman anywhere in the world, Tanzania not excepted, comes with lots of challenges.
What we had not bargained for are the things we see today – and, more so: when the girl-child is not just unsafe out there, but is also unsafe at home and in the school environment.
The girl-child is not safe on popular media, nor is the world-wide web (www) the best place for the girl-child to grow up in. Worse still, we have leaders whose view of women leaves one wondering whether the plight of the girl-child has a happy ending.
The ascension of Tanzania’s first-ever female to the Presidency, Her Excellency Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan, should to all intents and purposes be reason to celebrate. But, clearly we do have a problem here.
A state presidency is a very powerful position anywhere as, for all practical purposes, anything and everything a President says is virtually statutory.
Now, here we have a former Tanzanian girl-child in the highest office in the land, and the question is: should we be high-spirited and heartened by that, or should we be depressed because she seems to be speaking from the very script that we thought her ascendancy had helped us overcome?
No disrespect intended here, but I do think that there is no need to remind everyone that the office-holder is female.
To remind everyone of that fact is to undermine the power that comes with the office – and to play into the hands of the very people who need to be so reminded: the misogynists.
Let me remind those of you who are misogynists that the presidency is everything: the alpha and omega of our world. Indeed, our country has produced many great women going back to the days of Bibi Titi Mohammed.
Many of them have made a name for themselves as teachers, researchers and historians. These include – but are by no means limited to – Asha-Rose Migiro, Anna Tibaijuka and current United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Ms Joyce Cleopa Msuya-Mpanju.
These eminent women have held high public positions and flown the flag of the United Republic of Tanzania globally at different times in their sterling careers.
If there is anything we should learn from these distinguished women, it is that they proved capable – and that their being women did not in any way diminish their ability to deliver in their roles.
The Tanzanian and African girl-child needs no apology for being born female, and as President Hassan said, the roles of women in child-birth and upbringing need not be overstated. It is what it has always been: noble and exalted.
The danger for us as observers is that the very people whom we try to bring up to hasten gender equality are almost invariably the very same people who are slow to accept the narrative of equity.
When women choose when and where to be equal to men, they reduce their ability to speak and stand up on equal terms with men. Why, then, should women make disparaging remarks about each other – a job that is already being done well by misogynists in society?
Let us remind our sisters, mothers, aunties, wives and grandmothers – the lot of women – that God also created them in His own image, period!
Being someone’s wife, mother etc., does not define you as God’s creation.
I always asked myself why our daughters have been internalised by society so that, in their young age, they are known by their fathers names i.e., for example: “Anna David Mapesa”, and, when they marry, they take up their hubby’s name, thus becoming, for example, “Anna Samwel Mpendahela”.
Ladies, start from somewhere and maintain your own three names as you go through the journey of life. It is a small but important beginning to greater things!
