WOMEN!!!

Women are strong, women are industrious, women are loving, women are nurturing, women are the embodiment of all that is good and great in the world. Even the most outstanding man was carried for 9 months in the womb by a woman, given birth to by a woman and raised by a woman. While men have brute strength, a woman's strength is her will! Women have strong wills. Mental Strength, the ability to endure physical and mental pain, and the act of self giving for the sake of children and family.

The world try time and time again, like the persistent onslaught of a waterfall against a rock to break the woman and call her weak!
And yet, the woman walks with her head high and until she opens her mouth to tell you the things she has survived, you would be under the mistaken assumption that she's never had a hard day in her life!

Female Genital Mutilation went on for generations before it was abolished (still ongoing in some places) causing inexplicable pain to women for generations, but days ago, I came to know of a practice that was whispered when I was growing up but I never really paid attention to it, forgot all about it until 2 days ago. I finally realised why it didn't make a mark on me growing up: no one talks about it. No one admits to having experienced it because unlike FGM , this was not celebrated. With female genital mutilation, they were celebrations, in most cultures, it's seen as a rite of passage and celebrated but THIS? This was done in secrecy and the effects are all the more devastating.

BREAST IRONING!!!

So, a girl starts growing breasts and the parents (usually the mother- why are women  usually the perpetrators of this wickedness against women?) decide that it's too early for her to grow breast and (GET THIS) PROCEEDS TO HEAT UP A SMOOTH ROCK, STONE OR KNIFE AND PRESSES THE NEWLY DEVELOPING BREASTS BACK IN! 😳😳😳😳😳
The pain is unimaginable!
This is 'to protect her from the lustful eyes of the men around her"
And so, the responsibility of man's self control is placed on a child! And just like a lot of other things, a woman even a young girl child is to blame and to be punished for a man's lack of self control and proper behaviour.
I want to express myself articulately, intelligently but I am consumed by pain which I have decidedly transmuted to anger! Anger at the system, anger at the patriarchs and the princesses of patriarchy who continue to uphold these systemic oppression of women! Breasts burned or ironed down! The pain, physically and psychologically is inexplicable. And yet these girls who grow up to be women forge on, strong and determined and yet with a soft side to be nurturing and loving. Some of their husbands may never know the ordeal they went through.
A man would stub his toe and the whole estate will know through his wail and scream and throughout that day, he walks gingerly as everyone continue to sympathize with him. But the world does not afford women the luxury of walking gingerly after stubbing a toe! They are expected to get up and get in; to continually keep it moving. A woman would experience Breast ironing and/or Female Genital Mutilation and no one would know. Infact these breast ironing sessions usually takes place in the morning and these girls are then sent off to school, with noone knowing what they had to endure that morning. And yet misogynists and others continue to push the narrative of women being weak! Hogwash! We may have different strengths, males and females, but women aren't weak!
Dear woman, you are strong! You are strength personified. Never let anyone tell you otherwise!
To our sisters, mothers, aunties and grandmothers who had to suffer Female Genital Mutilation and breasts ironing, you are heroes, survivors and I am sorry you went through that ordeal. May you find peace and healing, free yourself from that pain and breathe!
You are the real MVPs!!!