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Ciku Kimeria
Writer, Adventurer, Development Consultant, Travelblogger
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piqer: Ciku Kimeria
Wednesday, 23 August 2017

Women Cannot Be Heroes, For Their Pain Is Considered Normal And Necessary

The erasure of female pain, as explained so beautifully in this essay, can be traced in Yoruba mythology as much as it can be traced in most other creation stories globally, including the Christian one of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

In the beginning, according to a version of the Yoruba creation story, Olodumare, the creator of the universe, sent 17 Oriṣas on a mission to establish the earth. 16 of them were male and one was female; her name was Oṣun. Without informing Oṣun, the 16 male Oriṣas made decisions about the ways in which the Earth would unfold.

When important decisions were being made, Osun's opinions were not taken into account, but when a mess had been created that the gods needed rescuing from, they called Osun to assume that dreaded role that women the world over are meant to take pleasure in — the helper, the fixer, the invisible woman behind the men who ensures things work.

The writer wonders why women are rarely considered heroes and the awful truth comes out.

The ancient Greek Menander once said: “Woman is a pain that never goes away.”

Pain and womanhood are considered one and the same thing, and there is nothing novel about our pain. Our pain is that which should be borne with fortitude, minimal complaint, hidden.

Once, in high school, when I all-but-crawled into the clinic for some painkillers, one of my male friends saw me looking less like myself and asked me why. “Cramps,” I said...Almost immediately, the nurses stopped what they were doing and called me to berate me for being “shameless enough” to tell a man I was on my period.

Every culture has their way of reminding women not to "over-react", not to be "emotional", not to cause a fuss

...women...consistently have their pain dismissed as psychological overreaction, driven more by a schizophrenic illusion than an intelligent, objective assessment of reality.

This "woman is pain" rhetoric ensures that issues facing women can always be swept under the rug as "that's just the way of life".

Women Cannot Be Heroes, For Their Pain Is Considered Normal And Necessary
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Comments 1
  1. Ixtzel Arreola
    Ixtzel Arreola · Created more than a year ago ·

    Wonderful piqd, thank you very much for sharing.

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