I, am Simple Woman

[thalamus]

I found this article very moving

 

i hope ya'all enjoy it tooo

 

I, a Simple Woman

 

( Relates a story of how women are treated in Africa )

By: Sharif Amin

 

 

My God, how hard it is to be a woman, how hard it is to be a simple woman back home in Africa. Little girl, you are relegated to the background. You are the shadow of the little boy who is the guarantee of the perpetuation of the family and of your name. You, girl, will belong to another family. Over there you will be the stomach that makes babies, you will be a cook to nourish this new family, you will be a maid who does everything, you will be in some ways a slave who doesn’t have the right to speak, whose only right will be to obey and accept whatever is imposed upon her. You, girl, will only be seen after they are done looking at your brother. You will go to the kitchen next to your mother to learn to be a woman, to be a mother, and especially, to be a good, submissive wife who doesn’t know how to say “no†or “Iâ€, who knows only how to say “yes.†Your fate and your destiny are in the hands of others who dispose of it as if you didn’t exist, as if you were a small object or a little dog that one manipulates as one wishes.

 

You will go to school, but in a random sort of way. There won’t be any real investment in your education because they know your education won’t be a long one. Soon you will have to leave school for your own home. You must get married. This is your first responsibility. This man will be chosen for you. Do you love this man? Do you even like this man? Oh, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you marry. That you don’t stay at home until you become an old maid. The important thing is that your parents hold their heads high having successfully accomplished their exalted mission, to educate and marry their little girl. No, in the scheme of this decision, you don’t exist. Anyway, as they say, “Appetite comes in the course of eating.†So, my girl, you will have this appetite in marriage, you will love this man and you will produce handsome males for him. And yes, they will be males. Be especially careful not to produce females for him. Make sure they are little men. As if you had divine powers. As if you could determine the sex of these children that you will put into the world. But my girl, if you want to have the esteem and respect of your in-laws, make only boys for them. To put girls into the world is only a waste of time and energy. You will have spent nine months of your life suffering uselessly. This girl is nothing but a superfluous responsibility that we could all easily do without.

 

So, my girl, you will only make men with your husband. Only in this way will you be a good wife. But how old is this girl who marries and must give birth to masculine power? She’s probably about twelve years old, or maybe thirteen, not much older in any case. She’s a girl who hasn’t yet finished playing with her dolls. She’s a child who still needs her mother, who still needs to be pampered and coddled. Even so, this child will be torn away at an early age to assure her function as an adult. She who still needs to be taken care of must take care of another home, of a husband, and of in-laws who are sometimes very demanding. She whose body has not yet finished developing must give life herself. Your childhood is sacrificed in this manner. Married at your age, what kind of childhood can you hope to have? I don’t see it. But such is your destiny. The young girl who has become a wife despite the fact that she will live with the thoughtlessness of a young adult projected into a universe that isn’t her own. You will be a woman, a real, responsible woman. No one will put up with your childish ways, or your bad behavior. You are no longer a little girl, you are now a woman with responsibilities, and you are the mistress of a home. Keep this always in mind. Never forget it. The little girl who has become a woman will give birth to many children who will grow up in the fold of her love and under her protection. She will be a good mother, loving and attentive. Her children will be her happiness and her joy. And one day her life, and the life of her children, will take another turn. The sky is darkening. The horizon threatens. The future seems to slip away. The mother, the wife, is anguished. She is frozen by fear. But what is this thing that point toward the horizon, that frightens her so, that rips the happiness away from her motherhood? Woman, your life is suffering and self-sacrifice and abstraction. This thing on the horizon becomes clearer. This very night, woman, you will be awakened by an unusual noise. Your heart stops beating, you are short of breath you’re frightened. The far-away sound gets closer. Your heart bleeds. You’ve identified the noise. It’s the sound of machine-gun fire, bombs exploding, combat tanks advancing to get into position. It’s the sound of soldiers’ footsteps on the ground, of anguished cries.

 

Woman, the children that you put into the world through tears and suffering are getting killed, massacred by the children of another woman like you. These sons that they asked of you are warring. The ground is flooded with the blood of your children. Every day, more are being killed. You look on, powerless. You look at the carts filled with the mutilated corpses of your sons, riddled with bullets. You cry with all the tears of your body. There is no one to console you, no one to ease your pain. Who can you turn to, on whose shoulder can you cry? Your pain is even greater for the fact that there’s nothing that you can do about it. You watch your children die and you are nothing but a poor woman. You scream your rage, your hopelessness before the body of the fruit of your womb. And you ask yourself questions. Why give life when you can’t protect it, when you can’t prevent it from meeting a violent and bloody death? It’s so that they can kill each other that I, woman, must give birth to men. Childbirth is much too painful to watch your children suffer so. Nine months of painful suffering, of sickness, of fatigue, of uncertainty. And then comes deliverance, in the midst of blood and cries and tears, and anguish above all. Will I survive such pain? To what will I give birth? Will this child be perfect? Will all his limbs be intact? Will he come into the world alive? Will he be in good health? All those many worries in vain, just to see these efforts annihilated in the blink of an eye by the bullets of a soldier who fires without even knowing why he’s fighting, or the implications of the combat he’s undertaking. This son of a woman is also a pawn who complies by wounding the heart of a mother while fighting to save his own life in order to ease the fears and worries of his own mother who lost sleep because her son was on the front, because at any time she might hear the news of his death.

 

I, the woman, I will always cry for my son, whether he’s a soldier or whether he’s the victim of a soldier. I will always agonize for my children. I will always suffer for my own inability to protect them from the greed of white-collared men. Pain will rip again at my womb in the face of the unlimited ambition of these politicians who are completely unaware of my existence, who are indifferent to my suffering. I, woman, I will continue to watch my sons die because other men have so decided. My son, you will die from the bullets of this man who wants power at all costs. You, your life has no meaning, as long as he runs the country, as long as he has the glory, as long as he has international recognition, but especially as long as he amasses the greatest wealth possible at the expense of the people.

 

My son, it is for these reasons that you will die alone somewhere, maybe on the corner a street, struck down by a bullet that might not have been destined for you, on your way home from class or coming home from work. In this way, my son, you will leave without saying goodbye to me, plunging me into a state of complete distress. In this way, men in white collars, like gods, have decided your fate. They have decided that your life here below was over. And that I, woman, should be plunged into the solitude of your absence. Woman, from this point on you will remain alone to collect the memories of your son. You will see, every day, these men who killed him on your little television screen. You will see them prosper; you will see their stomachs grow. With pain, with hatred you will spite them. But this won’t bring your son back to you. And you will ask yourself why God permitted this to happen to a woman and the mother of humanity, to be treated in this way? To be constantly afflicted? For how much longer will these men continue to rip my kind mother’s heart?

 

I scream my indignation to the face of the earth. Are there even ears to hear me? I am a revolted woman. But how do I express my revulsion? Do I need to make up my mind not to put any more sons into the world so that I don’t have to sit by, powerless, and watch them massacred? Do I too need to take up arms to protect them from everybody who would want to harm them? I would like to find a solution that would put an end my anguish without doing as they do, without using violence as they do. For a woman is love, she is kindness and tenderness. Hate must not find a place in her cotton heart. But how, woman, not to have hate in your heart when they constantly make your tender heart bleed? When your soul is constantly tossed about in your body? You’ll know how to ease your heart. Because you give life, you don’t take it away. You don’t take away the breath that you instilled into a body. That’s how you are made. Your mission is to take back the happiness around you, and not the opposite. Woman, if you had a magic wand, I know what you would do. I know it. You would transform yourself into a little fly and enter into the bodies of those murderers. You would take away from them all the evil that is within them. You would soften their hearts to make it as soft as yours. You would make new men out of them, men with the tender hearts of women. You would make them understand the errors of their ways, which you will make them see. In that way, tears filling their eyes, they will ask you forgiveness for the evil they have done. They will express their remorse and their regret. In this way, you, woman, will finally be happy and satisfied with your place as wife and mother. Childbirth will not longer be painful for you, but only a joy. For your children, they will live in the fold of your love for as long as God is willing.

 

Sharif Amin, B.Sc; M.A;

Social Worker/Advocate for Victims of Domestic Violence!.

Denver, Colorado.USA.

E-mail: sharifamin@hotmail.com

[o0o]

This article is so moving..

[Warrior of Light]

Mashallah,

 

You would take away from them all the evil that is within them. You would soften their hearts to make it as soft as yours. You would make new men out of them, men with the tender hearts of women. You would make them understand the errors of their ways, which you will make them see.

I wish this could really happen.

[rudy-Diiriye]

i do see this article was written by a dude! what gives!! he aint telling the truth 4 real!

 

i, some how believe sistas r better off in the homeland where they were treated like queens than in the western world! where they r tripping 24/7!! due to lack of separating reality from false information!! :confused:

[Dhagax-Tuur]

Apparently, more Latino women are becoming muslims just because Islam and "muslim men" treat women better than their Kuffaar counterparts.

 

There is culture and there is Islam....many either lack or deliberately miss the difference.

 

I believe muslim land's women are treated better than the 'civilised' west's. The article's points are based on ignorance, and minority ignorant section of society doesn't speak for all and does not represent all.

 

 

P.S. I didn't finish reading it, but heard few that are similar to it.