Street harassment

One of the acceptable behaviours that frustrates me is street harassment. You can not walk down the streets of Blantyre or Limbe market without some vendor or worst still a group of them saying" chemwali koma ndiye mwatchenatu" sister you look great or they greet you in this rude sarcastic way and you are expected to answer. The moment you ignore their advances, they start calling you names and talking all these negative things about you mostly sexual. These vendors have no clue who you are nor do they remember your face after you are gone. To them you are just a girl clearly powerless. They live on the assumption that women's bodies are for their enjoyment or that girls choice of clothes is about their attention or satisfaction. I believe, some vendors who do this in their uncivilised state still represent a male dominance culture that has been
Socially accepted for way too long. It is characterised by disrespect towards women, intentional verbal and or physical abuse and the need to see a woman miserable. What sickens me is that it has become acceptable and nobody seems to talk about it in a way that would make daily life easier for  women and girls. There are so many irritating things that happen to young girls or women every day in the neighbourhoods, markets and schools that make life more difficult for them that are normalised as boys just being boys.  A while ago, I met a young man in his late twenties, "educated" independent,handsome,eloquent but a misogynist. The moment he started to open his mouth, I wished he had shut it. It was flowing with ego and disrespect. This made me realise how, so many men irrespective of educational background are disrespectful towards women in their words and actions but never realise it probably because they have no idea on how to act better because just like the obnoxious vendors, nobody tells them its wrong.
As a society we need to point out these wrongs in plain  truth. It doesn't matter if you think women enjoy those advances, trust me we don't. I believe mutual respect between men and women is very vital for the success of every family,village and country. Please don't tell women to adapt to these occurrences, its our society that needs to change for the better. Choose to act differently from what you were  taught to believe was acceptable. #SelfloveAfrica

For all my sisters and mothers

As I  travelled from lilongwe to Blantyre a few weeks ago, an old man probably in his fifties started shouting at a little girl, 12 or 13 years old for sitting on his seat. He shouted at her with no shame at all. He went on and on blaming the  girl, calling her names and all. The bus was so full and everyone was scrambling for the few seats. In actual sense it was another man who had taken his seat but instead of confronting him. He decided to insult this poor girl, obviously it was easier for him. In Malawi many girls suffer verbal and physical abuse because most adults believe they have a right to talk to children any way they please. What striked me the most was that, some women sitting close to the scene started defending the  girl. They asked the man to leave the little girl alone. Pleading with him to spare her the embassment. I loved the fact that these women decided  to defend her. The world has abused girls from a young age for way too long with older women believing it was tradition. They watched as their daughters were humiliated by boys and older men, all in the name of culture. Little did they know that practices such as Kuchotsa Fumbi (forced sex after initiation) were meant to satisfy sex hungry men not make their daughters better wives. The world has stood silent to domestic violence saying "zambanja salowelela" (what happens in marriage is nobody's business). The Internet has stood silent as social media has been flooded with misogynistic kind of advise. Telling rape victims its their fault for dressing inappropriately whilst men are not taught self control. Watching those two women defend this young girl got me so excited. It was evidence of a new era  in which older women are tired of being onlookers, tired of staying silent and are moving on to protect and mentor girls. As the weeks have gone by and I have seen a couple of high profile women's events take place in commemoration of the Women's month in Lilongwe. My heart is filled with hope and joy to see us move steadily towards self awareness and sisterhood. The privilege to make acquaintance with an older woman to look up to and a girl to mentor should be every lady's goal in this day and age. Gone are the days when women competed with each other. Strong women are standing up to bring forth a generation of elegant, successful women. The song of inequality among men and women will one day be history if society realises that fighting a war against women is like shooting yourself in the heart for we are the engine that drives the whole system. We are mothers to all the unborn future leaders. In the professional world, we are still experiencing a gap at decision making levels. Women are getting educated  but are mostly lost in the crowd of assistants and lower/middle management levels. Most successful women we know move from one department of government to another, not necessarily being replaced by another woman. It's quite obvious that the same women are moving across from executive director in one organisation to managing director in another. We cannot be satisfied with this trend, we cannot sit and assume that we are getting more women into power while we are not getting new faces. We have more young women  getting into university but professionally we need to do more to create more leaders/ managers. Let us work on every level to make sure that women are progressing at every level from girls to educated independent young women and moving on to Senior managers and national leaders in their field of work even beyond. I believe  womanhood is the most beautiful gift I have ever received and I will not let anyone treat me or my sisters all around the world any less because of it. I am every woman