Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

PROLOGUE

Facing Up 1

...Ours is a society fragmented by our individual selfish interests. This fact explains why a ‘white’ woman who complains about discrimination in favour of men can be a racist; a ‘black’ man who complains about racism thinks it is okay to beat up gays; and some Muslims who complain about lack of equality before the law think it is okay to force girls into arranged marriages. Our young people refuse to continue to live with the repression and oppression. Black boys stabbing each other can be seen through another lens as giving the ultimate cry for help; white working class children hanging out in groups, drinking, smoking and taking dope are probably saying: “If you don’t care about us why should we care about us?” Even politically radicalised Muslim boys, who are reportedly plotting to blow us up, are screaming out for equality, fairness, respect and understanding.

In facing the challenges ahead we are going to have to make some choices. We can continue to bury our heads in the sand and hope that we can contain our children in the way British yobs are contained through policing and espionage as Jack Straw, the Minister for Justice, clarified on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show recently. We can continue to blame the experiences of our young people on bad parenting by the poor and disenfranchised; or we can face up to the causes and effects of the crisis facing our young people...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER ONE

Do you know what empathy means?

...I remember sitting in my bedroom one Saturday morning bawling my eyes out. By then I knew that I more than liked Tony but I did not have a clue about how to deal with him or the situation. I was young, and confused. I had a boyfriend waiting for me in Nigeria. My life path was clear. I was going to make a lot of money in London and then go back to a life somewhere in Africa, have a family and live happily ever after. What was even more horrifying was that Tony was ‘white’. This would send my father completely mad. Daddy was an open racist who loathed ‘white’ people, in particular ‘white’ men. I had seen him with my own eyes at parties back home when he’d make a point of moving as far away from any Caucasian who dared to be dancing too close for comfort. How would he react to his only daughter ending up with one of them?...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER TWO

My Father’s Daughter

...I remember turning round to him and saying: “When you lie down with dogs, Daddy, you get up with fleas”. My father laughed and laughed at the shock of what I had said to him. Then he punched the air with joy, saying how brave I was. He also said that he knew that if he died right there and then, that I would be okay.

It is only now that I am beginning to understand my father’s fears for my wellbeing as a woman. I remember some of the lessons he gave me sitting on the balcony. He taught me that sex was a beautiful experience – the challenge was in how one treated it. He taught me that I should never be afraid to stand up for what I believed in and even be prepared to die for it. He taught me that it was okay to have my own opinions even if it meant going against the tide. And most importantly, he taught me that I was a unique individual and that I should never try to be anyone else.

These lessons were not always imparted convivially...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER THREE

More than a Woman

...I subsequently found out that this inane logic was quite widespread amongst women of my mother’s generation, of the Anglo-Saxon culture and for that matter all patriarchal cultures. Girls were treated differently emotionally. Boys were more revered and treated delicately, especially eldest sons. The separation was no longer so much in the traditional division over roles and responsibilities or about what girls were capable of achieving, but more about boundaries and the distance that boys and girls were allowed to travel in their lives...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER FOUR

The Gender Con

...Under Protestantism the extended family tradition of the Catholic Church was reduced to smaller self contained families. Protestant woman no longer had the support of the spurious practices of confessions, novenas, miraculous shrines or the doctrines of purgatory which had given her a strong sense of community and hope. Alone, and tied to the Protestant home and family before God, woman lost the ideal of individuality and dignity that Christianity had once offered her. Men were in firm control and patriarchy ruled.

The onset of the Victorian era helped reinforce further support for this status quo. But it also gave rise to feminism amongst women who were prepared to defy the rules of this religious patriarchy. This in turn led to increasing tensions amongst men who were now being challenged into thinking about identities that their religion had so clearly mapped out for them. The result was an increase in antagonism towards women and resentment of women’s search for freedom. The backlash that followed sought to reaffirm male superiority over women. It idealised the role of man as the dominant masculine figure. It was a position that would be achieved through force and, in spite of the conservatism of this period, through physical violence, sexual violence, through any means necessary...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER FIVE

Victoria’s Prison

...Women emerged from two thousand years of Christian history in various states of mind, ranging from conformism to rebellion and manipulation to compromise. No woman who has been exposed to this world view, in spite of the progress we have made, has remained unscathed by the wounds inflicted by patriarchy. These days, although the roles of men and women are nowhere near as rigid as they were centuries ago, our lives are still conditioned by a Christian past. Many of the challenges we still face are steeped in centuries of perceptions which have survived into the post Christian, secular era. Most women continue to be mentally and emotionally, if not physically, consigned to Victoria’s prison.

Some have chosen not to question the system. They prefer instead to accept tradition and society’s expectations of them. Others have chosen to compromise between their roles of the independent modern woman and the dependent traditional wife or spouse. Yet more have chosen to challenge the system by adopting the rules and values of patriarchy...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER SIX

Role Play

...He also evidences women who have held high positions and status in society from which they were later barred. These women had been queens, led armies, were warriors and chieftains, diplomats, scholars, artists and leaders. According to Briffault, the reason for the transition to patriarchy was the exposure to the notion of surplus profit and the desire to accumulate property. Men wanted to pass property on to their own children instead of their sisters’ children as was done in matrilocal and matrilineal communities. Thus, in Dahomey and Alaska the wealthier classes are patrilineal and the poorer classes are matrilineal.

Chinese clans are named after the signs of women and birth signs. In years past, property could not be transferred outside the clan. The Chinese traced their descent from women; and those of the upper classes held high office as late as the eighth century. Jewish lineage is traced through the mother; and until the establishment of the Kingdom of David, Hebrew communities were organised into matrilineal clans. It was much later that they adopted the names of their male ancestors...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER SEVEN

Survival of the happiest

...As the masculinisation of cultures progressed, male sexuality was further regulated as the body, emotions and elements deemed subversive of male control became despised. This was why the Catholic Church forbade priests from marrying. It was a rule designed to minimise the influence of women over men and to ensure male loyalties to the institution.

The gap between men and women continued to widen. Men became the gods on earth and women the slaves on earth. Man’s contempt for woman continued to be fostered by forces of patriarchy such as institutions of religion and the army. They became isolated not only from women but from the feminine principles and values associated with them. The inevitable competitiveness between men and the never-ending jostling to gain the attention of the ‘fathers’ of the institutions they served isolated them even further from each other. If they could not befriend those who were like them, they had nowhere to go...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER EIGHT

Breakdown

...We are now learning that the needs and psyches of men and women are remarkable for their similarities than their differences. Technological advancement has made it possible for people to have easier access to information; and the media, for all its sins, has brought into sharp focus the extent of the choices on offer. Girls are now doing better than boys at school. Although ‘man’ is still very much in charge, earning more than his fair share over an equally qualified woman; ‘man’ the hunter, provider and protector is extinct as many join the queue of the unemployed and disenfranchised. And although this bias is bound to fail women as it once failed men, men are also being marginalised as central to the family or the lives of their children. The traditional sense of ‘entitlement’ of men is being challenged everywhere. But we are also learning that man is capable of altering his way of thinking and living. In this sense, breakdown is a good thing.

Already there are small shoots of hope...

Sneak Peek: More than a Woman

CHAPTER NINE

Changing History

...History somehow has a habit of repeating itself, especially when we do not question it or seek alternative ways of being. Tradition, limitations, gender stereotypes and expectations had fermented a pattern of behaviour amongst the women I grew up with which fanned inter familial feuds, anger, bitterness and resentment. Everyone – children, aunts, uncles, cousins - was left feeling alienated and suspicious. In such environments treachery and humiliation become the dominant cultural traits, as they were in the case of the Dobu tribe featured in Ruth Benedict’s study Patterns of Culture. Far from unique, this situation was commonplace not only to families I grew up with in Sierra Leone, but also to those of many of the people I encountered in England. Treachery and humiliation were the cancerous combination that was eating away at the remnants of the Anglo-Saxon’s protestant legacy. And they were slowly destroying us… and the rest of the modern world.

In many ways, I am very grateful to my mother. Whether she was aware of it or not, just like my dad who had prepared me for the journey of my life, she did make the right decision. I was perhaps that bit more equipped and capable of dealing with the sacrifice she had to make. She couldn’t have sacrificed my brother. She couldn’t have faced up to him either. Nor could she deal with what I had become. It was right to let go of that phase of our lives, of that circle of history that we were trapped in. And, I think deep in all our hearts, in spite of the sense of alienation we suffered to one degree or another, we knew we couldn’t continue down the path of tradition. We knew we had to change history...