Stop celebrating servitude

There is a Sesotho saying that always baffles me. “Mosali o tšoara thipa ka bohaleng” the literal translation being that a woman holds the sharp end of the knife. As to why any sane person would choose to hold a knife by the sharp end is a mystery of the ages, but one cannot argue with the accuracy of the statement. It is not just Basotho women but African women as a whole that are forced to enjoy the sharp end of the knife. There was a meme going about on social media this past week about not asking marital advice from black women because it involves suffering and praying. It was funny on the surface but sadly true. I always wondered how and when this love affair with suffering came about. The truth is that we do not so much choose a life of servitude and suffering as it is instilled in us from an early age. Growing up as a young black girl you could not just be taught chores without an element of servitude attached to the task. Instead of being taught to cook because you will need to feed yourself the message was always “how are you going to cook for your husband and in laws?” The consensus for black girls has always been that your life is not your own and you must always therefore be prepared to serve. Even something as small as playtime for black girls had more to do with duty than actual enjoyment. Playing house, carrying little dolls to emulate being a mother, playtime has always been about preparing one for their eventual chores and while there is nothing wrong with playing house essentially it is the instilling of the mindset that gives one pause. This is even worse when compounded with the fact that good old natured fun in black girls is often penalised to the point of being criminalised. Who can forget when people wrote long pieces speculating the future prospects or lack thereof just because a group of young women possibly in their teens were video graphed dancing? Here was a group of young black girls, having fun, dancing and adults who should have been tending to their own business spent days arguing as to whether they would make it in the world. Granted it was unbecoming for a group of teens to be drinking alcohol from the bottle, but the conversation was never about the dangers of teenage drinking and how drinking would affect their lives, it was always about how the perception of their worth in society would change because they dared to dance for a few minutes. One person even commented as to how they are mistress material not wife material! As to why we are a society discussing the marriageability of a group of teenagers is an issue for another day but to assert that such marriageability is negatively affected by an act as joyful as dancing is bafflingly stupid. The message that has been enforced since birth has always been, learn to cook, but not so you can be able to feed yourself but so you can better serve others. Sweep properly, not because it is important that your surroundings be clean and hygienic but again because it affects the way others perceive you. There is nothing wrong with teaching young girls household chores or anything for that matter but there is something very wrong with raising children with the underlying message that their lives are not their own. Do not drink whole bottles of vodka by yourself as a teenager should have been the message that was being debated when the video of that group of girls was being circulated, because drinking a whole bottle by yourself is dangerous for your health and even more so when that drinking starts when one is underage but instead the concern became more about their perception by others. The underlying tone as always was about how young black girls should remember and be cognisant at all times that they exist in the serving and pleasing of others. The dancing episode was annoying but to anyone who has observed black culture it is not at all surprising. Black girls in Lesotho especially are not raised for joy, they are raised for suffering and servitude and no one enforces this more than older black women. Black mothers, aunties and sundry enjoy nothing more than to put younger girls in their place, whether it is because they themselves had the spark of joy taken out of them or they are trying to be protective in telling the younger generation not to be too different as it will only lead to heartbreak one cannot tell. Thakane Rethabile Shale