International Women’s Day|The Follies I Still Face.

Another international women’s day is here. I’m still dealing with sexual harassment, inequality, mistreatment at the most basic levels in Ghana where it shouldn’t be.

Women are often treated as an accessory or object for disgusting small minded men with self control and entitlement issues. People often say the day the #metoo movement catches on in Ghana will be the collapse of the nation. Perhaps a collapse and rebuild is needed.

Teachers raping female students, professors demanding sex, money or they fail you, the system doing nothing to protect women even when there’s irrefutable evidence. Rape and gender discrimination jokes being spread in these Facebook and WhatsApp groups just for laughs.

Men also end up suffering the residual effects of what the women face on a daily. Their frustrations eventually come out with how they perceive all men and a poor manner in how some innocent men are treated. Yes not all men are predators but most do not speak out when they encounter their boys being boys. Silence is implicit agreement.

Most men still don’t realize the gravity of what women face daily. From the globally recognized photographer who grabbed my breast in public because he wanted to, to the disgusting celeb photographers who prey on women and tried the wrong one with me, to the servers who ignore you completely until you are joined by a man so I’ve literally had to yell at them for service, to the hotels that treat female guests like prostitutes, to the men who grab me because their desire to speak to me takes president over my rights to live your life, to the policemen I’ve had to give my number to just so I can leave a checkpoint, to the boss who bragged about how of course he pays men more because they have more responsibilities and I would need to get a boyfriend to supplement my salary or date them of course if I took the job, to the man who felt comfortable enough to state I must sleep with him before he makes a charitable donation he decided to pledge on his own will, to the landlords who police the gender of guests female tenants can have, or the landlords who harass you when you reject their advances, to the multiple men who feel my personal space doesn’t matter and they can come put their hands around my waist or any part of my body without consent but if another man did the same to them it would be a problem, or the countless women who endorse these known predators because they haven’t been victims yet and benefit from the friendship, and the numerous women who enable the system by enforcing the inequality. These have been my experiences since the previous International Women’s Day.

In Ghana especially, what baffles me is the silly recurring argument that why should women have equal rights when they aren’t genetically equal... When you ask them wether they should have equal rights to other ethnicities they strongly agree and defend the point and you tell them well you’ve answered their own question and they seriously tell you it’s not the same. A woman having the same standard rights you have to your male lives doesn’t equal a woman trying to get rid of the male species. A single woman can’t even make the decision to remove her uterus without consent of her imaginary future husband regardless of wether she has serious medical issues or simply doesn’t want children, a man however, can walk into any clinic that does vasectomies and have the procedure done even if they are married without consent from their wife. Men have full control over their bodies and reproductive rights and women do not. Women were only allowed to vote in some countries as recent as 20 years ago.

None of this inequality is originally in any african culture. Let’s stop this miseducation and enforcing this broken system.

Let’s strive for equality of rights.

It is only those who benefit from a system of inequality and oppression who feel threatened by the notion of equality because it means they will be relinquishing the privileges they often don’t realize or admit they have.

Inequality is a global crisis that needs all hands on deck to rectify. Help be part of the solution. What is one step you will take today to help bridge the inequality gap?

#ThoughtsOfP