I used to have these extremely painful and excruciating periods.
They started off as normal painful periods but over the years they evolved into something demonic.
Besides the terrible pain that forced me into a fetal position for hours non stop, I also had terrible diarrhoea and vomiting. My period was this nightmare that I was forced to relive every single month until just a few years ago.
There were days I had to stay home from school, and other days where I had to leave school and come home. In the worst cases, I went from school to the hospital, not after having littered the infirmary with my vomit. It was a torture.
On this particular day, I was having my period as usual and the pain was so severe that I could barely stand on my feet. I was doing the washing up with one hand while pressing against my ovaries with the other one.
I emitted laments of pain between one plate and the other, until I could no longer bear it and sat down.
That's when this very useless friend of my mother who had come to spend time with us opened her mouth and said: "Is this how you will say that you won't cook for your husband because you are having period cramps?"
I looked at her like she was the biggest idiot I had ever come across until then. My mother used to hold this woman in high esteem because she was from a rich home and also educated.
However, what I saw in that moment was a patriarchal bitch who couldn't even empathise with another woman because I, the other woman, was not willing to endure the pain and suffering expected of the African woman.
When did a man's needs become more important than my own health? I should die because I want to please a man? Make I kukuma use my blood cook for am now, the way that woman from that Yoruba myth used one of her ears to cook for her husband in other to win his love.
We see this phenomenon on this space every day: women condemning and attacking other women for refusing to take part in the suffering of the African woman. Some women even explicitly ask other women to join them in the suffering because "I cannot come and die alone".
Six years ago, while I was busy defending myself from an assault, the woman that was supposed to act as a youth coordinator was busy shouting; "Please o, I need to go home and cook for my husband."
Her concern were not her two children, both under the age of twelve, but it was her husband: a full grown able man, who by the virtue of having a wife, had become suddenly handicapped and incapable of fixing a meal for himself.
I joke a lot about not having good character all the time, but, trust me, if I were to choose, I would take my "bad" character over that of any good and servile Nigerian woman any time any day. That type of woman is trash.
That type of woman will sit and lament over how her father treated her mother and how she'd never understand why her mother put up with it, but, ironically, she is doing exactly the same thing that her mother did while she lives in the illusion that she is acting wiser.
We need to do better in how we women treat ourselves and in how we treat other women.
The average Nigerian woman needs to die out, so that the minority who recognises the dignity and humanity of female humans can emerge.
We need a revolution, and fast.
They started off as normal painful periods but over the years they evolved into something demonic.
Besides the terrible pain that forced me into a fetal position for hours non stop, I also had terrible diarrhoea and vomiting. My period was this nightmare that I was forced to relive every single month until just a few years ago.
There were days I had to stay home from school, and other days where I had to leave school and come home. In the worst cases, I went from school to the hospital, not after having littered the infirmary with my vomit. It was a torture.
On this particular day, I was having my period as usual and the pain was so severe that I could barely stand on my feet. I was doing the washing up with one hand while pressing against my ovaries with the other one.
I emitted laments of pain between one plate and the other, until I could no longer bear it and sat down.
That's when this very useless friend of my mother who had come to spend time with us opened her mouth and said: "Is this how you will say that you won't cook for your husband because you are having period cramps?"
I looked at her like she was the biggest idiot I had ever come across until then. My mother used to hold this woman in high esteem because she was from a rich home and also educated.
However, what I saw in that moment was a patriarchal bitch who couldn't even empathise with another woman because I, the other woman, was not willing to endure the pain and suffering expected of the African woman.
When did a man's needs become more important than my own health? I should die because I want to please a man? Make I kukuma use my blood cook for am now, the way that woman from that Yoruba myth used one of her ears to cook for her husband in other to win his love.
We see this phenomenon on this space every day: women condemning and attacking other women for refusing to take part in the suffering of the African woman. Some women even explicitly ask other women to join them in the suffering because "I cannot come and die alone".
Six years ago, while I was busy defending myself from an assault, the woman that was supposed to act as a youth coordinator was busy shouting; "Please o, I need to go home and cook for my husband."
Her concern were not her two children, both under the age of twelve, but it was her husband: a full grown able man, who by the virtue of having a wife, had become suddenly handicapped and incapable of fixing a meal for himself.
I joke a lot about not having good character all the time, but, trust me, if I were to choose, I would take my "bad" character over that of any good and servile Nigerian woman any time any day. That type of woman is trash.
That type of woman will sit and lament over how her father treated her mother and how she'd never understand why her mother put up with it, but, ironically, she is doing exactly the same thing that her mother did while she lives in the illusion that she is acting wiser.
We need to do better in how we women treat ourselves and in how we treat other women.
The average Nigerian woman needs to die out, so that the minority who recognises the dignity and humanity of female humans can emerge.
We need a revolution, and fast.
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