Being a woman, especially a single, a divorced, or a widowed mother, in a mostly fundamentalist society, calls for incredible stamina, courage and luck to live out a near successful life, if ever successful. The plight of women who have to contend with a highly sexist society is real, is grueling, is exhausting. With more than their mouths to feed, with more than their health to worry about, with more than themselves to shelter, their struggle is mostly futile. For the sake of the innocent toddler’s or teenager’s whose blank eyes are waiting on them (because society has made bringing up children a women’s responsibility), for the sake of their children, these women whether the beating rain a little longer — far too long.
When these women, with this beautiful fighting spirit, reach the end of their life’s journey; when having given their all and more; when having hoped, gotten disappointed, and hoped again then gotten disappointed; when in the despondency of the box they’re encased in or vase their ashes will fill; when we grace this ceremony to nod their success; They are nothing but an empty shell of themselves.
When all that the prose-written-and-told-in-tears[eulogy] tells is how they were whipped about and scarred in their struggle for a better life; then must it be stark clear in everyone’s mind that there is nothing that can satisfy the so often repeated saying “hard work pays”. Nothing.
This wonderfully popular cliche is a perfect anecdote to pacify and make those in suffering forget that they’re trapped within walls that their measly hard work will never break. These wall erected with social norms, traditions, and customs; these walls whose mortar is laws and policies, and whose builders are the privileged in society[men], create the perfect cage that traps them.
When the hardworking woman meets the dead-end in this spectacular maze of her life, she can only sigh at how the cosmos steals and keeps the very reward of perseverance that it promises them — the reward of hard work. Their skin — often paled, dry, burnt, and/or heavily bruised by their daily labors or struggle and fights — is far from the reward that they most obviously deserve. Their eyes, just before they forever shut, show the turbulence and tempest that has raged in their heart and their life. On their deathbed, they want to fight for one more breath with the hope of seeing their children rise to better lives and perhaps redeem them from the misery that a gender-biased society tossed them. They want to live just a bit longer to ensure the safety and comfort of their children.
Yet while this yearning is overwhelming, with equal intensity is the longing of a momentary rest — a crushing desire to close their eye to a painful life lived and fought. They wish to end the pain of a cruel world. Not that the physical world is inherently evil — the cosmos has no bias. It is not that the fields weren’t yielding crop, while that might sometimes be true, it is the people in the world that are too ruthless, too selfish, too greedy. Scratch that. It is the men in the world that are towering slave masters. They have created this “world”, and they rule it. A man’s world for men indeed!
The flaw in this world that drives these women to despair is that humanity is to a larger extent not what it professes. While we may want to fill books with stories of the happiness at the end of struggles and of the rewards that await women that persevere or suffer in silence, perhaps as an encouragement to others that struggle, or perhaps in tribute to our faith(like how that the bible teaches women should keep their mouth shut), I shall not record this falsehood and foolishness here. The deception that there’s a happy home when women submit to their husbands (or men) and endure the hardship of their “inferiority”, is fit for no other place than the abodes of trash and senseless talk.
Let me offer context here.
Judy, a mother, like others, was born in an OK family. Though born to a tea farmer that owns several hectares of land in an agriculturally productive part of Kenya where the fields are evergreen, she — sadly — wasn’t lucky enough to be born a man. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she got violently domestically abused by her husband and she was left off to raise several children on her own in an economy and society that is not forgiving to empty pockets. And to women. Without land, without income, without any skill besides home caregiving, without any formal education, she gropes and stumbles through life with her ten children.
Her brothers aren’t cruel people. They are willing to give her a small aboard for a short while until her mother dies or until her children are old enough and wealthy enough to buy her a piece of land — where when her story is ended, she may be laid to rest — whichever comes first (death or redemption by her children). Of cause it’s not said explicitly in words. But it’s strongly implied. What I mean by her brothers offering her a small piece of land, is that she is allowed to lodge with her mother. I’ll explain.
In the community that she hails, the land is split equally to the sons upon the demise of the father (or split to the sons according to the will). A very small part of the lastborn son’s piece of land is given to the mother(wife of the late) for subsistence. This property is then requited to the last born male child when the mother dies. Women can’t inherit their parent’s property not unless there are no male descendants, and even then, it is not guaranteed that they would be able to— the process is fraught with cleverly crafted frustrations from uncles or brothers. Judy isn’t even this lucky as she is not an only child. So when her father dies[not that it would make a difference], and she’s divorced, and the land is inherited by her brothers, she can only hope for their kindness in letting her stay and act as her mother’s caregiver. That way as Lazarus, she and her mother may benefit from the few crumbs that fall off from the high table of the patriarchy.
The law in many places is incomprehensive or often carefully crafted to oppress women. The instruments of justice that are generally frail and slow, never offer justice. While the constitution gives her the right to inheritance, there is no legal recourse, at least not any promising path, for her to claim her right to ancestral property. The law defends women’s right to property acquired in marriage, but the court has before denied widows’ right to their husband’s ancestral property.
As a smokescreen, lawmakers would occasionally make tiny contributions of law to right this gross inequality. At the rate at which they write and implement these changes, Judy, like many other women, will die with nothing to her name, not even a 4x6ft piece of land for her grave. After her last breath and the hope that her children will lead a better life, she will be sent off to the public cemetery. If she is lucky, her generous and kind brothers would donate a small piece of the ancestral land for her to be laid to rest.
Is this kindness, is it hypocrisy, or is it brutish ignorance? Viciousness is more like it, or borderline. It doesn’t count that her brothers took her children to school. It doesn’t count that they “happily” paid her medical bills when she got sick. All this help they offered does not right the glaring wrong of disinheriting her off her right to ancestral property. Married or not, she was born just as much in that family as the brothers. She wasn’t born to be sold off in marriage and have her fate tied to the kindness of the husband she marries; that if she got a wealthy husband, well and good, but if she gets divorced, separated, and abused, then it’s too bad.
It is no wonder despite abusive marriages, women tend to hold on. Though they lose their dignity, though they are psychologically tortured, and are physically assaulted, their biological relatives will most of the time require them to hold on tight in that unhealthy marriage. When all else fails and she is kicked out of her home, they will offer food and a little help. When or if she dies, they will sing her praise in her eulogy of how persevering she was. But this is no kindness they offer. Kindness doesn’t wear such an ugly and smug face. This is cruelty. Even when done ignorantly, it is a no less cold-hearted monstrosity.
This is the reality of millions of women across the world(especially in Africa and Asia). While it may not be this grim in the more progressive countries on this specific question of inheritance, there exists in all jurisprudences different shades of every form of gender inequality.
We are all just as much guilty for watching in silence acts of gender bias. Guilty for waiting for this inequality to resolve itself. I will not praise the stupid pretenses of progress that people claim. That “the law is a bit more inclusive and protective now”. Unless justice is offered fully, it is not offered at all. Unless it is given fully and quickly, it is denied. No woman should feel as though it’s a favor to have an equal footing as her brothers in the inheritance of land, in the right to have a place to call home, or in any privileges whatsoever. She should never feel as though she might as well worship her brothers who are tender-hearted to (disinherit her and then in pretense) give some little help to feed and educate her children.
It’s not the time for long debates, baby steps, and compromises, it’s an all-out war for justice. And I for one, will not relent.