A gold-digging whore…
Your view, his view…different lenses, same object. When it comes to women, there are no elevated species.
‘This advocacy is not for me. It’s for all the women who toil day and night and do not get what they deserve. I’m powering through for the downtrodden!’
That’s the lie you tell yourself. Be it night or day, you know the advocacy is for you. It’s for all the fleeing you are doing because you will not face your trauma.
You run from your personal problems. You’ve accused many of doing the same but perhaps are really accusing yourself. Your flight path takes various forms. You induce amnesia to run from trauma. You work very hard to run from handling personal problems. You work extra hard to earn more just to run from disrespect. It is all in your trauma. Deal with it or you’ll be in flight all your life.
They say ‘an old woman is never comfortable when dry bones are mentioned. You shrink from discussing money at work. ‘They will think I am too greedy. Women do not get focused on money. That’s not what decent women do’. See? You are reacting. Reacting to all the theories your head has been filled with. Reacting to the desire to be wanted and approved by your potential employers. It is not bad but you see, timid women do not get when they deserve. They get what they are given when they do not ask for what they desire. So you work really hard to earn.
‘When a child washes her hands, she eats with Kings’ so you work. You work your brains out to show you are worthy. You earn so you do not get seen as a leech yet you are afraid of having conversations that you have with your girlfriends. You are afraid of making financial jokes so you are not seen as ‘asking’. You do not want to be ‘that girl’. Then again, what is wrong with being ‘that girl’?
The thing is that you will not drop a beat if he makes the same jokes. A man can say ‘Nne bia choroom ego’ and you’ll laugh and say ‘Nna from ebee’ or ‘Nna bia kam maa gi nku’ all as a joke so why is it shameful to be ‘that girl’? Some women are afraid to make jokes that make them appear needy. They are afraid to be tagged a ‘gold-digger’. Now the joke is on you because he is socialized to always see you as ‘that girl’ and it doesn’t matter that his gold is washed out Bronze. It does not matter if you are as pious as piety or whoring on the streets, it doesn't even matter that you can afford more than the basic. The gender power imbalance tells him you are ‘that girl’ just dressed up in different colors.
‘Where one falls is where the person’s god pushed the person down’ and just one incident makes you realize that it is not you. It’s this person. There is nothing you can do to earn that respect. They cannot give what they do not have. Flowery language can mask it but like a bad sore, it causes a wince every now and then.
So you see, the advocacy is for you. You are back to “women’s rights are human rights” because there is a reminder that expensive hosiery and jewelry do not create equality.
