Four Occasions I discovered that women weren’t weaker vessels

First of all, anybody who ran this PR for women did a great job. Conning the length and breadth of humanity with a notion that holds in its core a deception that prospers because of our collective inability to pause the noise in the world and think.

Second of all, there was a time in history when I pandered to this belief of women being weaker. Now I think about how I convinced myself that it was true and I can’t remember when I made that decision. it clearly meant that I picked up this idea from society and I ran along without questioning it. Same society that encouraged men not to cry, told them that the art of letting your emotions liquify and run down the cheek is anti-masculinity. Regardless of how a man feels he is bound to an imaginary oath of manhood.

Well, I have broken the oath. I have left that mindset behind—The first day I cried it made me feel really bad for all the men who have not experienced such peace because society asked them not to and they are foolishly defending a brand of masculinity that deprives them of their humanity. Sometimes I wonder whether people think suppressing something in existence makes them better humans. Something is brewing inside of you. Be it an emotion or attraction. You shut them all up and walk around with heavy shoulders until you grow numb and when you stop to feel you are good as dead but they don’t teach this in college.

**************

Women cry about anything and can summon tears in seconds. Especially the witches among them. (I say this on a light note as I am a wizard). Once a woman cries and washes her face to bed, wait for her to wake up and behold post-crying glow. And that is how their insides are. Crying massages the human insides and women happen to be the only people with this knowledge. So much for being a weaker vessel.

First time:

As a child I knew my mother was not a weaker vessel the night my father tried to open a pot of boiling plantain porridge with a kitchen towel. My mother taunted him and she walked over to the pot with culinary arrogance and opened it with her bare hands and held it up for some time before keeping it on the table. My father would later confess that it was one of the wonders of the world--How women play with hot pots in the kitchen. He conceded defeat but masked it in poetry.

Second time:

My grandma, lost up to 7 of her kids and her husband. She buried all of them and died at 111 years. That woman was a phenomenon in many ways. It was in her eyes I thought about other families with dead grandfathers and living grandmothers. They were a lot. Grandmas are the ones mostly blessed with longevity maybe because they cried all the times, they felt hurt and the sheer therapy of letting it all out healed their insides but grandpas would rather drink or resort to utaba (snuff) that will hurt their insides more.

At her old age she still washed and cooked by herself. Swept her compound and wen to the market to sell ukwa. It was unbelievable because people always used her as the SI unit of long life and good health. My granpa cannot relate. He died when he was 65.

A hard man.

Third time:

In the Igbo culture, the strongest and the most revered deity is Ani, a woman.

In Catholicism, every prayer goes through the ears of the weaker vessel Mary before she transmits to her son or her second husband.

In time of famine, ancient Igbo people performed sacrifices to the earth God for her womb to be fruitful lest they starve to death. She, the deity is responsible for the food we eat and that isn't weakness. She literarily provides food when we are alive and when we die she houses our remains in her bosom under the ground.

For Catholics, anything they do must have Mary in the center. A defiant woman who left her betrothed husband at home to go and have intercourse with the holy spirit. The immaculate intercourse led to the birth of Jesus, a don that changed water to wine. An absolute OG.

Nobody prays to Joseph, the man who was first with Mary before the holy spirit developed feelings for her. Despite being the villain in this story she still has statues globally and half of humanity prays to her.

That isn't weakness!

Fourth time:

The day I pulled all my clothes off in horniness and the girl I was supposed to have sex with was still clothed. Even had her wig on. It was then that it occurred to me that many men across the world with their strength still surrender their nakedness at any promise of coitus.

There I was naked staring at my hardness and using my eyes to communicate my lust to her. When she came over to have me in her mouth, I was so grateful she redeemed me from torture that is blue balls.

I almost worshiped her. It was an epiphany of sorts, a confirmation that these creatures are everything but weak.

Finally, I know the world is a set up and most of the things we defend with our lives are not our ideas. We were introduced to them and suddenly we are ready to fight for this idea that we have no idea where it came from and the intent of the owner of this idea.

Gender roles and expectations are man-made and should be treated as such. Women aren't weak by any standard available in history.