Dear Ghana peeps,

Greetings from one of your own. I have borne certain grievances for a while and it is mentally liberating to let loose on a couple.. For me, the most significant are the mental prisons we have been socialized to commit ourselves to. One letter alone will not suffice to communicate the entirety of my complaint, I will therefore be guided by the principles of brevity to as much an extent as I can. 

For your ease of reference tribe, I tabulate as follows:

Marriage: 

Marriage is NOT a standard, I repeat marriage is NOT a standard. Marriage is an optional social, or if you will, spiritual union. It does not define any level and it is no measure of success in life. Can you stop ingraining in women this unrealistic need? Can you stop measuring women against this ruler? Yes, women have also begun to conform to these norms but it must stop! And it must start with you. Aunties, stop asking when young women will get married? Pastors, stop pushing them into unions that mar who they are and erode the very fibre of their existence. Even the bible says: “and the two shall become one”, it does not say “…and the woman shall melt away and all that shall be left is the man”. Hello? Can you hear me? Mothers, stop shying away from church because your daughter(s) are not married. You are all to blame for the thousands of women out there, languishing in emotional and mental torture because they are not married. Geez, can they be themselves? Can you stop providing men with such lethal ammunition against women? 

Let me offer a mental model to assist your process of penance and hopeful conversion; We are all going to die one day. This earth has been entrusted to us to use, but also keep well for generations to come. Amidst all the accountabilities this imposes on us, environmental and otherwise, is marriage REALLY what we should be focusing on?? How about being a good person? Ensuring you are making the world a better place by your social interactions, by how you maintain your environment ……. Do these not sound like higher orders? standards which far outlive us? I am not against marriage. Some would argue that it is important for procreation, that is all well and good. My angle simply is this…. Do not force women and do not make it a standard against which you (and them) measure their self worth. And stop saying they have a choice, you leave them with none considering the way you have socialized them (our women)!

Childbearing:

Ever heard of the phrase, “children are a gift from God”? Ok, so why the darn pressure? Are gifts “by force”? Yes, think deeply about this. Do women owe you? How can they owe what they don’t even own, what they themselves are not even entitled to? You measure them against this standard, knowing full well biologically it takes 2 to birth a being. It is in fact extremely idiotic to me that you know this, yet stare them down in the face for a baby! Zero logic. Women don’t own the rights to this thing, they can’t manufacture this thing all by themselves, yet they must “produce the body”! Take a deep breath, see how unfairly you are treating women? I hope you do. There are many ways they can mother if they choose to, stop judging and taking away their option to choose. 

Cooking:

And so what if a woman cannot cook? Why does it matter really? If she and her husband can cater to their culinary needs just fine, what is your own? You train men irresponsibly to expect a chef in a woman, how about you begin to focus on teaching them to fend for themselves? Remember the mental model? How does that impact our legacy in this world? 

So my ask of you is this: You have had women mentally bound for too long, LET THEM GO!!!!!