Love Under Pressure
WE LIVE in a society filled with pressure, a society that places pressure on women, expecting them to get married at a certain age. As a result some women end up falling in love for the wrong reasons.
If a woman does not get married, the community, friends and family will start to suspect that something must be wrong with her. The woman is either labelled a loser, miserable, slut and many other ugly adjectives that come to mind.
In my opinion, our cultural beliefs put women’s lives in jeopardy. Many young women do what they do not want to do out of fear that they might be shunned by society if they do not live up to its standards and expectations.
The majority of passion killings, divorces, relationship breakups and domestic violence are high today because many women found themselves in relationships not of their own free will, but rather due to societal or peer pressure.
Some women get into marriages or relationships and stay there until they add to the statistics of gender based violence (GBV) or passion killing, all out of fear of being labelled losers if they dump their lovers.
These cultural beliefs that a real woman needs a husband lead many women into shooting themselves in the foot, especially those who have babies out of wedlock. Most of them end up in abusive relationships because they do not take time to choose their partners carefully as they are under pressure to shed the burden of embarrassment that surrounds single mothers.
It is reality that some even stoop as low as to the point where they pay men to marry them, just to please their parents, friends, the community and society at large.
The question is what makes a real woman? Should a real woman be defined by society alone or by the woman herself or both? The most important thing is the freedom of choice, which everyone should be allowed to exercise without fear that they will be called names or society might make unwarranted assumptions.
So many young women are trapped in relationships because their partners ‘invested so much’ in them. As a result they cannot end the relationship because they fear for their lives, especially with passion killing an ‘in thing’ right now.
Life is worth living for yourself, not for anyone else. Women need to learn to do things differently and do that without having to depend too much. We must ensure that women empower each other through various available mechanisms and institutions to stand on their own and break the male dominated systems that define their political game, fate and future. Women, just like their male counterparts have the right to choose what they want to do and what is best for them.
Having said that, it is now up to us women to choose our society, not the other way around. Society will always judge you, people will always gossip, so ignore negative energies and concentrate on positive ones, live your life as you see fit and make the best out of it.
We need to promote cultures that allow us to show our traits, respect our human rights and to live a life without fear.
Hendrina Shuunyuni
(a young feminist activist)
By email