You can’t make rules, can’t go to school because they deem it unnecessary and useless, and can’t talk in the presence of men. Your job is to take care of the kids, clean the house, be a housewife, and basically obey and follow everything your husband wants you to. Where exactly do you place us? Do you think we are human beings? Are we just slaves to be tossed around? Don’t we have rights too like the men? These are the questions I asked myself every day.

Over the years, in many societies, women have found for their rights and succeeded. It’s the twentieth century, everything has changed or everything is supposed to have changed? The question her has it? Places like Africa show that it hasn’t. Yes things are better but things have not completely changed. Before women were not allowed to go to school on the reason that it’s a useless cause. They don’t have the right of heritage and right to make decisions. Most of these practices are still done today. In Africa, we believe that sending a woman to school is a waste of time because the woman will eventually get married and live the family for husbands. The same reason why women don’t also have the right to heritage.

When will they stop looking down on us? When will they stop tossing us about? It seems we are always at the mercy of men. In your family, they see you as useless and a ways to get money, in your husband’s family, they see you as a stranger who has no right to talk or have a voice. I say this from experience because it’s what I know I am bound to face one day.

Just take this into consideration, a family with five children, four are girls but boy. You know who gets all the benefits when the will is written, the boy no matter what position they are in the family.  Is it fair? That we girls should try our hardest but never get recognized for it and our dreams are destroyed because of our gender.

I as an African girl who is going to be an African woman one day, I say we have to fight and have a voice. We the girls have to show them that we are stronger. We are not just required to be house wives but successful women and mothers. We are very well capable of doing all. When I see our mothers and grandmothers, I see strength and courage. When my grandmother goes to the far very early in the morning, comes back and without resting tries to make something for us to eat. When my mother goes to work every trying to find money and still with all that tiredness still fights to find food for us.

That’s what means to be an African woman. That’s what I thrive to achieve and that’s what we all should try to achieve. We deserve a life and our dreams. The only way to make it happen is for us to fight. We should go to school and try to reach our greatest heights because I think a woman with education is a woman with power and an African woman with education is a woman with respect.