Let Her Speak

One of my earliest memories will always be one in which an older cousin is busy telling me to be quiet.

This cousin and I had had prior conversations in which he told me that I spoke way too much for a girl, and that my husband would beat me for it one day. It was funny at the time. It’s all fun and games until girls internalise the social conditioning that asks them to be quiet when they have something to say, so as to ensure that they don’t inconvenience anyone, or God forbid, that they don’t hurt someone’s feelings.

I thought that growing into my teenage years with a mouth that is perpetually loaded with opinions would send a message that that is simply the way I am, and that it’s okay. I was mistaken. To this day, I continue to encounter people who genuinely think that it is appropriate to make it known to me that they think the ways in which I choose to engage are ‘aggressive’.

The reason that continues to be so surprising to me is the fact that I have seen boys take up space in the exact same ways.

I cannot stress enough how my heart boils whenever I hear a mother tell her five-year-old daughter to sit down and stop playing in the mud, and witness that very same mother look at her son exhibit the same characteristics and nonchalantly say “that’s just how boys are”. Every single day, I have to actively unlearn the notion that I am only deserving of love when I actively perform my supposedly inherent maternalism.

Young girls who are told to keep quiet grow up to be women who not only shrink in situations where they should be taking up space, but they also go on to be women who excuse their husbands (assuming that they are heterosexual) for behavior that is fundamentally problematic.

It is logical to assume that one of the major reasons why over 50 000 crimes related to gender-based violence have been reported over the past three years is because young girls are taught that they should be ‘the pacifiers’.

Those young girls grow up to be women who can’t assert themselves in meetings and can’t gather up enough courage to believe that their dreams and their voices are valid.

Our GBV statistics will keep increasing as long as we are told that being ‘the softer gender’ is synonymous with allowing women to be the footstools upon which you rest the feet of sexism.

Doing better for the generations to come means allowing our girls to step in the shards of glass left over from us shattering existing ceilings of silence. It means reframing our rigid perspectives on what a legitimate actualisation of someone else’s humanity should look like. We are ready to take up space and the time is now.

Bertha Tobias is an 18-year-old Namibian, currently studying at the United World College in Changshu, China, where she is pursuing a pre-university international baccalaureate qualification.

She is a #BeFree ambassador, volunteer for One Economy Foundation and an intern at the

United Nations Population Fund.

Email her at missberthaj2000@gmail.com.

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