How much money am I?
Maybe this question will haunt me for the rest of my life. Maybe not. Whatever happens, I know one thing. I know this question will stay with me forever. Like a second skin, reminding me of how some people of the male gender think of me as a woman. And this makes me angry, fearful, desperate and sometimes, it makes me feel helpless. Mostly, it makes me yearn for the perfect life where once again, we’ll all be equal and true to that equality however that equality will show itself.
As a young woman, I’ve been always awake to the privilege the male gender is handed at birth. And the second place females are handed as well. But the past three years have pushed my anger and fear and disbelief and overwhelm to a further extent. Whenever I think of birthing now, I wonder how differently I can help my sons see my daughters. How differently I can help my daughters see themselves and my sons. Because femininity now is in its most confused stage; women marching for equality with men (which I support) and the same women unable to handle the good difference women have from men and thereby ending up endorsing contents and attitudes that treat women like they do not want to be treated. I never thought something I’d see on YouTube would break me even further.
I was watching random things and chanced on Broadly, as always is with chancing on things on YouTube. I watched a documentary about a Muslim creationist with what is suspected as a feminist cult. I was on watching a Lesbian Convention but I couldn’t and I found this documentary about Bulgaria’s virgin bride market. I quickly clicked on to watch. I was full of curiosity and nerves. The Bride market is held by the Kalaidzhi ethnic group in Bulgaria annually. Brides, mostly virgins (or always virgins) are chosen and paid for by a man and his family at the market. Besides all other unfair things coated in so much laughter and tradition in the documentary, this is what stood out for me from the film – that a man will find it okay to be told to buy a woman. In the end, as the interviewer or journalist (i really don’t know what to call her at this point) pointed out, the bride market wasn’t as distasteful as I expected it to be. It was more of a mass matchmaking event – much to my relief. I was grateful for the fact. That it wasn’t as bad as could have been. But I left that documentary behind unable to shake off the fact that anyone thinks a woman is a thing to be sold off and betted on. That there exist men who will not feel shame and remorse and disgust about being asked by tradition (and in this case, it is pure tradition) to buy a woman.
As the journalist explored the “bride market”, a man approached her and asked her how much she is. She asked him whether he’s asking how much money she is. He answered in the affirmative. The smile on his face, the air of entitlement and the utmost right with which he answered in the affirmative are right before me as I write. It shook me. It angered me. It made me feel like in some part of the world, I am a thing to be sold off. Then it made me think in my part of the world, even though those who think so may not say it, there exist men who see me and think how much I am worth. How much they can pay for me. How much time they can spend to buy me. How much words they can speak to buy me. How many houses they must have to buy me. How many cars they must own to buy me. How much money they can give in exchange for me. At that moment, I realized the struggle of the genders is really because one gender believes the other can be bought and paid for, in whatever currency. And one gender must use much of their existence to fight this back.
And I wonder, did He, God, not make man male and female?
©Awo Twumwaah 2018.
Afua Awo Twumwa 