Image: davouma.blogspot.com
I’m not going to mince words. I love me some African woman. I love her attitude, passion, strong will, intelligence, independence and free spirit.
Say what you have to about African women. But to me they simply rock. For the record, I acknowledge that we have a number of them who are loud, mean, too argumentative, too needy, too materialistic or carrying too much baggage. However, I’m not going to allow a few crazy drama queens destroy the value image, reputation and integrity that is an African woman.
Across the world, and particularly in the African context, women were born with two strikes agains them: being a woman, and being a woman discriminated by men’s prejudice, ego and obnoxious African traditions. However, through all this, African women rose and guess what – they still rising.
An ode to the African woman
The resilience, strength, elegance, power, love and beauty of African women is what attracts me to them. And for what is worth, it’s not simply the outer beauty (brothers you know what I’m saying) that enchants me to them. It’s not even the fact that they come in all shapes, sizes, colours and shades that I love them. It’s their inner beauty that I find most appealing, most fascinating and most irresistible about African women.
Their strong spirit, loving and nurturing souls.Their integrity, God-fearing spirit and down-to-earth nature. Their ability yo overcome obstacles, their willingness and resolve to stand for what they believe in, and their determination to succeed and reach their highest potential, while enduring discrimination, pain and suffering is why I love me some African goddess.
Its the fact that they would raise their children under very difficult circumstances. Teach them the ways of the Lord. Sacrifice their own happiness and deny themselves the pleasures and finest things in life to make sure them kids get an education. In case you didn’t get the memo – a good number of successful men you see driving nice cars around, living in good houses and have good jobs – are a result of an African Queen who changed his diapers, wiped the mucus off his nose, cleaned the shit off him, encouraged him, disciplined him, supported him, and earnestly prayed for him.
Unsung heroines
African women are unsung heroines. Despite men’s domination of pretty much every field and area of life, the African woman has conquered it all, and she needs to be appreciated, valued, honoured, loved and cherished. Most of us weren’t born in fancy hospitals. But the practical African gathered tattered clothes, and sometimes banana leaves and invented one of the best diapers int he world.
Most of us weren’t born with cereals and all that fancy baby formulas. But the industrious African woman invented some crazy African concoctions of millet, sorghum and herbs that gave us a six-pack while were only three weeks old – and you wonder why African men are strong and masculine. Have you ever wondered how an African woman would raise her dozen children into successful men and women without the intervention of a self-help book or a skewed TV series? I always wondered how mama raised the five of us into successful people with her elementary basic education?
The Bottom Line:
To everyone, especially African men, let’s resolve to always celebrate the African woman. Treat that African Queen in your life with respect. Love her. Appreciate her. Provide for her. Fellas, if you were to step out of your African ego and machismo, you would realise that you have a great mother, an amazing girlfriend, a good wife and a loving mother to your children. Let’s not just wait for Mother’s Day, flock on social media and upload photos of our mothers, wives and girlfriends, and pretend to celebrate them. How about we make every day our Mother’s Day where we constantly celebrate the African woman – our African Queens.
