I AM NO EVE

I have heard so many things in my life.

“You are a girl, walk like a girl

You are a girl, look down when men are speaking

You are a girl, never shout no matter the pain

Are you crying because of this little thing?

What will you do when delivering a baby?

You are a girl, a big mouth will only throw you out

Of your husband’s house

That is, if he doesn’t kill you before then

A girl always has to tauntingly hide in clothes like an “aketeesia”

And wait for the higher specied beings to search for her

Now you are growing into a woman

Be prayerful because you are the spiritual head of your marital home

Be respectful because you have an unknown family to serve

Behave like a man, and you will become an old maid”

I have heard so much in my life.

“If your decision is to remain single,

Know you have the society to battle

Learn to work well under duress

Hiding all marital pains

As washing dirty linens outside makes a bad wife

You must be accommodating

Very accommodating

So much so, that you accept other wives of your husband as your sisters

And care for them

You must throw all your emotions out!

Emotions make wives witches

Making them unnecessarily covetous

And ending up unattractive to their husbands”

I have heard so much, I can never enumerate all

Some tell me those with analogies

“Eve thrived on Adams’ bones”

They fail to stress that Adam trusted Eve’s judgement into doom

They mention that Jacob married two sisters

But they fail to stress on the enmity between his children

They tell  “be holy as Mary was holy”

But they fail to stress that Joseph had no hand

In the pregnancy of the Christ

Do I also wait to be mated by an angel?

They tell me to love a man as Christ loved the church

But they fail to stress the fact that Christ never married

Will it be surprising if I told you these suffocating advices mostly came from my elderly kind?

 

Today I have a voice

Please do away with the analogies

Like the human being that I am

I want my voice to be heard

I am no Eve

Eve was a woman who was never known as a girl

Eve was a woman like me

But I am a worldly breed

I was conceived same as the man

It took the same moons as that of the men

To grace this habitat with my presence

I did not have to have bones transferred from any part of any man to have my earthly stay

So I must be seen as a whole being and not as half a being

I am a woman who is human and must be treated as such

Never will I stay quiet when I wish to speak!

Never will I close my eyes when I wish to look!

Never will I hide in clothes when I feel for the breeze!

Never will I wait to be searched for when I can also equally look

Never will I stay in the shadows of other beings

Because I was born alone and must live my life in uniqueness

I am me and can never be another

I am no Eve, so I do not expect anyone to act like my Adam

Leave me be.

Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © 2014.