#42 : is it a gender war

if only one gender is dying?

    Hi guys. Came out of my self-imposed hiatus for this one. I think it’s important that we have this conversation.

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  You may be feeling how I am feeling now, dear reader — angry, distressed and incredibly frustrated. The world is tilting on its axis, but hasn’t it always? Nothing is new under the sun, they say, — girls and women die at the hands  of men and boys every day — yet every time we hear of it, it feels like whiplash on raw skin, because we as women know it could have been us.

Every girl has a story. Ask them. They’ve been assaulted by men and boys in different ways (verbally, physically, sexually). We are taught to not walk home alone at night. To not wear short skirts. To not play with our hair. To not do anything that gives a man the impression that we want him. It’s a universal feminine experience: women of all races, ages, and religions are at the mercy of men all over the world.

I was walking home one evening. A man trailed me, asking for my number. I gave him to shut him up (they’ve learnt the new trick of calling your line on the spot). When I got home and blocked him, he called me using a different line, threatening to find where I lived. I was scared for three weeks after that.  I love my evening walks, but I couldn’t take them, for fear of running into this man. On another of my evening walks, I passed by a man peeing on the roadside. It was a lonely street. Upon seeing me, the man proceeded to point his penis my way and palm himself vigorously, his tongue sticking out ; a dangerous glee in his eyes as he registered my horror. He took immense pleasure in scaring me shitless. These are just experiences that come to mind. There is more. Ask a girl around you. They have horror stories. Stories that most boys and men will never ever be able to relate to. The world should not be like this!

Recently we have heard horror stories around the globe. A 71-year-old French man was caught at charged to court. For over a decade he’d invite men over to rape his drugged wife. Over fifty men have raped her. It’s come out that their neighbor, who she knew and related with, had been one of the men. A HIV-positive man had raped her six different times. Her husband arranged it. Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei was burned to death by her boyfriend. A 15-year old Nigerian boy broke into his neighbor’s home and raped a 14-year old girl to near death. An Indian doctor was gang raped to death. 150 mg of sperm was found in her. Men were searching her name in porn sites to see the footage. I could go on and on. There’s so much we do not know. Six women are killed every hour by men around the world, most by men in their own family or their partners.

I’m angry. And I’m tired. I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being  tired. They ask why we are angry. We are angry because our fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins or friends could kill us. A stranger could kill us. Our partners could kill us. I say we aren’t ANGRY ENOUGH!

I’m tired of beating around the bush. We aren’t in a gender war. It is not a “gender war” if only one gender is dying. We are experiencing femicide. That is what this is. Stop feigning innocence. Understand it loud and clear. The past few years have become increasingly dangerous for women around the globe. Women’s rights are rolling back in real time! Why, didn’t we just come out of the FGM/C debacle in my country, The Gambia? The Gambia was a breath away from decriminalizing FGM/C! Every thing the elders fought for seems to be crumbling before our eyes. That is why we must fight, girls. We must.  This is not the time to play around.

I have my theories on why we are in the place we are , a place where young boys and men have become increasingly angry and violent. But my God, I don’t want to talk about that now. I want to remember the girls and women that have gone, and to remind everyone around me, girls especially, that we must never forget them.