'Shame' of Womanhood.

 

There is so much shame surrounding so many things about womanhood. I do not know if this is different in other places but in Nigeria, where I come from, the feeling is rather pervasive. 

I remember a friend narrating a story to me about when she was sitting in her class and a male teacher came in to find the class dirty and retorted that all the girls should be ashamed of themselves for the fact that they could not pick up the broom and get sweeping. ‘What a shame!’ Indeed.

Many people with breasts and vulvae know little about how they work and how to keep them healthy and what is healthy and abnormal because even the most casual discussion is seen as shameful or pornographic. We are told to close our legs so boys would not be tempted to pry. Some adults shout at the younger girls saying ‘Cover up!’ How many girls know why their breasts get tender; Why they sweat so much; Why they have stretch marks;Why they have to modify their behavior to ‘avoid’ sexual harassment;Why they are considered less pure when a boy or man touches them. 

Some of us have gotten vaginal infections from washing down there too hard. It takes a very painful vaginal infection for some of us to understand that our vaginas need tender loving care. 

In my boarding school, one of the most embarrassing things one could do to herself as a girl is eat as much as she really wants to. The boys taunt her and ridicule her if she turns out to be a ‘fat’ girl. Eventually, one learns to cut down her ration. Boys also ridicule the ‘flat’ girls and ‘thick’ girls. So one is ‘damned’ either way.One way or the other one is made to feel shame for the shape of her body.

In class one day, I was talking about menstruation casually with some girl friends and the boys started to scream, ‘Eww, why would you say that kind of thing here?’Of course the convo still rolled on!

 A classmate(boy) asked if he could get my mirror from under my desk and when he got to my desk he suddenly dropped the mirror and looked irritated because he saw my unused menstrual pad. He said that I should get it out of there.Of course I did not!

My friends and I were playing this game called ‘Devil’s Basket’ where we read out letters anonymously written. One girl was insulted so much for being a ‘whore’ that I couldn’t even take being in the room anymore. Her choice to say ‘yes’ was so utterly insulted and she was made to feel ashamed for ‘opening her legs like a compass.’

Some of us have made out with boys on boring Saturday afternoons and felt ashamed and ‘whorish’ for liking the explosion they felt in between their legs. Some of us may kiss boys in the future and also be washed with the feeling of shame.

The worst insult a girl can be given is to be tagged a ‘girly -girl,’ ‘pussy,’ ‘bitch’ and the worst insult is for a boy is to be tagged as a ‘pussy,’ ‘fag,’ one who runs ,cries, or talks 'like a girl.’Just by being a girl, there is ‘something to be ashamed of’.That is why when I hear girls saying ‘I’m for gender equality but I’m no feminist!’ I think to myself ‘Just use the word, the people who hate that word already shame you for being a woman. It makes no difference.’ It is like saying, 'I don't want water, but I'll have H20 please.' There is no difference.

This is the reality that enough of us deal with once the doctor says,'It's a girl.' As proud 'Les Femmes Libres' we should spend every living breath in us showing people that they do not have to be comfortable with this shame.We should be the embodiment of empowerment. Empowerment in the sense that we do not have to 'act like boys' to be powerful or 'act like proper girls' to be accorded respect.