The most challenging part of being a woman is to combine career and marriage/motherhood. This is even more challenging when it comes to the African woman. I will tackle this topic with reference to my country as Africa is a big continent and every country has got its own ways of dealing with this issue.
Allow me to loosely use the term African woman here because in my discussion I will be comparing the African woman and the woman in the western world.
When a girl child goes through secondary school education, it seems to be the norm that the girl has a choice of either going to university to further her studies, do a short proffessinal course, work or get married. For those who are fortunate to go to university or do a proffesional course, they have another 2-7 years to study before they decide to settle down while those who did not usually the only option is mostly getting married and have children.
The interesting part of our society is that the less number of years a girl child/woman spends in tertiary education the higher the chances of getting a partner hence marriage. While the more years she spends in tertiary education the thinner the chances of getting married. There are several reasons that have been outlined from discussions with both male and female friends why this is so.
In the first place it is percieved that the more educated a woman gets the more independent she gets and the less likely that she will respect her husband. This is attributed to the financial security that the woman assumes due to her career hence the male counterpart think that the woman will be rude in the household as she would "stand up" to her husband because they are on the same level or worse still if she is on a higher level. But is this true? Well its an open question and I am sure everyone has a different way of looking at it.
Secondly, sometimes women try to pursue a career before settling down in a family because of the fear that when they get married they may not get a chance of reaching their goals as their partners may say "you have studied enough!" or "what dont I provide for you" or "aaaha so you want be like those other women who dont respect their husbands". In as much as this may sound funny, it has been a set back for several women who would have loved to continue in a certain career path.
These and many other reasons which you may know, have restricted women to pursue careers in certain fields back home in Malawi. But what is the picture in other countries in Africa and outside Africa? The answer to this question is open, I will let you as a reader answer this yourself. But if you ask me, every country has a different picture with the Western world being far ahead on women managing careers and marriage, others have even chosen their career at the expense of family, that is they choose to be single so as to pursue their career "at peace".
This is a topic that fascinates me a lot, "being a career woman". I will conclude by saying, women we can pursue our careers which ever field we want. No matter what perceptions society has, we can either prove them right or wrong depending on how we carry ourselves.
In this day and age it is good for a woman to be able to support herself and her family. And to those in our society who are bothered by women pursuing their careers, I believe its high time we reason together with our women and encourage them. The sky is the limit!
Have a blessed day!
6 comments:
a very thoughtful perspective. I think the experiences and challenges are the same all over the world. Ask the European women and the hurdles or frustrations they have to deal with inthis area. Ask who goes to war!!!
I agree with, and understand a lot of the points you have raised. Being a woman in this age is quite a challenge. Our mothers had a life very different from ours, so most of the time we have no point of reference and have to "wing it." I hope a lot of people will read this article, it makes you appreciate women a little more.
I really enjoyed reading this post. It is amazing how similar the issues that women face are, despite the cultural differences.
Well done! I think even if uare at the same level with the man (academically)but your cheque is bigger than his, then you are equally in trouble. My take on the atter is that, it is high time men woke up from thier deep slumber of thinking that the woman's place is the kitchen and maternity ward. Let alone thinking that they will always be th bread winner. In as much as we can't afford to rewind the clock of time, I think we can't afford too to accept the reality. The best thing for men now is to try to catch-up with career women and the challenges of marrying one, just as governments are trying to deal with the problems of globalisation. If our men & socities in general fail to adapt, then we will all perish since the change is here to stay and get even worse. So we either ADAPT or PERISH!
On second thought, I have seen several men who are very supportive to developing their wives if the wives did not have an education of a certain level. So it is not entirely true that men are not considerate in this sense. And the career woman should be and I emphasise should be safe in the hands of a man at any stage in her life.
You see, the real burden of this issue is that people are unwilling to acknowledge their irrational fears relevant to status, money and other temporal stuff obstructs any meaningful, fulfilling and spiritual living. I often wonder why people who place huge value upon trinkets never notice that they pursue that which is not true wealth. In addition, only our relationships make us rich beyond compare.
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