Show us some respect!

Tumie Modise | Monday April 24, 2017 15:53

That is me; it has always worked for me. I don’t like fights. I don’t know how to hold grudges.

Truth be told, a considerable number of males in this country generally have little or no respect at all for females. I know someone out there will berate me for this but hey, I was born, bred and raised in this country. I grew up with males, I have worked with them, I worship with them and share public spaces with them. This patriarchal society of ours means that males are supreme, that us females, well, we are just there. 

Two things particularly pissed me off this past week. The last time I attended a horse race must have been a couple of years ago, when such a race used to be the major attraction at the Agricultural and trade fair at my home village. At my home, homies can attest, those were the days. The memories are still there, like it happened only yesterday.

Back then, we did not really care about what else went on there, the horse race was the major thing and usually the race happened on the Saturday, late in the afternoon. Sadly, that doesn’t happen anymore. But at Maun, for a few years now the annual horse race is a major thing over the Easter holidays.

Will give it to them; those who attend always look and sound like they have great fun over there. This year, like the previous year, no dramas were reported, no lives were lost. Just when we thought everyone was accounted for, social media went abuzz with tales of ‘stranded’ females. Now I must admit that social media is fast becoming a social ill not only in this country but the world over. Used incorrectly or recklessly, it has broken down a few families, destroyed a few careers.

One day we will go to war courtesy of social media because even presidents use it recklessly at times. Our social media claimed last week that some females had, after having fun, been left ‘stranded’ in Maun.

Now let me hasten to add that this was not the first, nor the last time we heard reports of stranded people in this country. A couple of years ago, a prominent leader in this country once famously got stranded at some far away ‘cold’ country, thousands of flight miles away. So, people getting stranded isn’t exactly a new phenomenon in this country. Luckily, he was brought back home safe and sound.

Getting straight into it, fact is no one got stranded in Maun. In this annoying patriarchal society, the assumption, whenever there are trips, especially to places of leisure, is that females always do so at the expense of males. Not only that, that they are ‘always’ there at the pleasure of males; at their beck and call.  This annoys me all the time. Granted, the assumption isn’t always far off, I readily admit that there are a couple of instances where this is actually true. Some females, mostly young ones, sometimes betray our cause like that. It is the generalisation that always sickens me.

Free education in this country means that all can get equal education, compete for jobs and pay own bills. Reality is that many females can now afford to go on holidays at their own expenses, something the social media brigade missed altogether last week. I should know this because I do this myself and I know for a fact that a couple of females, married or single, often do so too. A lot of those did so even in Maun. I always say this, the thing about being disrespected is that most times you cannot defend yourself, especially when the disrespect attacks your morals. So, while these ‘stranded’ jokes were flying around, I was silently cursing. I really wanted to vent out, I didn’t. Like me, most females did not.

The other problem with this patriarchal thing, is that we are taught from an early age to respect our male counterparts. But like the saying goes, major injustices in the world are committed when people choose silent diplomacy over truth. Some day we shall revolt, mark my words.