It’s time for women to shake off the yokes that hold them back

 

Because of societal conditioning women are still holding from offering themselves for leadership positions or speaking up. FOTOSEARCH 

By Seraphine Ruligirwa-Kamara

In Summary

• The old conditioning is still holding us back from stepping out of societal expectations to claim our spots on centre-stage.

Today, I dedicate this column to women. What were we told about ourselves? How were we conditioned?

I’m sure we all remember some interesting beliefs passed on by our caregivers.

The more important question is how our conditioning plays out in our lives today. Does it empower and enable our success or hamper our efforts at getting ahead?

Those who raised us meant well. They taught us most of what they knew with the resources they had. And for many of those lessons that we have incorporated into our lives and become successful, we will forever be indebted to them.

But there are other lessons that were unconsciously taught to us — expressions, mannerisms, behaviour, processes and belief systems that are unhelpful to us today. They hold us back from reaching out for opportunities that truly showcase our capabilities, from bringing our best to the fore, from fully sharing ourselves with the world and be recognised, rewarded and celebrated.

I am left-handed. In my community, it was and is still is seen as a sign of weakness. Meal-times were for a long time quite confusing because using my left hand was considered taboo. A left-handed person was considered half-baked.

When I joined the village nursery school, my teacher Maria had numerous serious discussions with mother on this “grave” matter.

This child was left-handed. A left-handed woman, if married, would never be moved to her own homestead; she would forever live in her father-in-law’s homestead, that is, remain a child.

Marriage was preached to be the ultimate goal for a woman. All training was for the purpose of attracting a “good” husband. A good husband was an assurance of a good life.

Women didn’t inherit anything from there fathers thus the only chance for acquiring position, property, a title of respect and some form of recognition was through marriage and that, to a “good” man. Being left-handed was squarely in the way of that.

It only struck me much later in life that a limit on my potential and other left-handed girls was hardwired into our thinking from a young age. The highest we could aspire to in life was to become wives of “good” men.

Wives were good people, no doubt. They were our mothers. They had children, cared for them, kept homes tidy and happy, endured a beating here and some cultural ritual there and they did it whole-heartedly.

Those were good women. All roles of leadership, strength, promise, prosperity and respect were reserved for men. While you may argue that it worked out alright, such mindsets fuelled by our highly chauvinistic culture kept women away from aspiring beyond a “good” man.

It prevented true female beacons from holding their heads up high and rising to the peaks of leadership.

It is one of the worst forms of discrimination generations of women have lived through and come to accept. It is discrimination based on marital status. It’s psychological and economic significance bears a regretful combination whose effects range from subtlety to outright oppression. It’s programming on women is subtle yet decisively places a ceiling in our minds