Week Twenty – #realmenrespectwomen

On week twenty of my blog I decided to get on my soapbox and talk about a topic everyone is hearing about! And I need your support!

#realmenrespectwoman

Over the last few weeks we have all heard in the news the horrifying and shocking news that in Nigeria a group of schoolgirls were kidnapped just because they are women and want to be educated! The rebel group snacked 200 schoolgirls and has been posting videos on how they are proud of what they’ve done, boosting about wanting to sell them and even started to negotiate the release of members of their group in exchange of these girls.

I have not yet used my blog to talk about either politics or religion and certainly not about the news, but what attracted me to write my blog this week on this subject was seeing that while this story was being backed in social media by people including celebrities using #tags such as #bringbackourgirls, in many countries people were celebrating mother’s day. In the past few weeks we have seen all over social media people posting pictures of their mothers with messages of celebration for those women who have given so much for us and in many cases scarified themselves for us. I myself lost my mother 13 years ago and I know how much I miss her even to this day. Interestingly, mother’s day is celebrated, more or less, around the same time all over the world. We have also recently celebrated international women’s day, and again in social media we saw an array of pictures and celebration showing our respect and admiration for women all around the world.

And women play an integral part of our lives. We all know that in general girls are more attached to their fathers and boys to their mums, either way, they are pinnacle to a man’s life! I know this to be true in my case, I was very closed to my mother, I know my son can’t live without his mum! And I know that my daughter has a special relationship with me, and one day she will to her own son. But Women have a special bond with their child (male or female) something I believe men are incapable of feeling or understanding. Don’t get me wrong, I think we can love our children as much as women, but the fact that we all grow inside the womb of our mothers is something that nothing can ever replace or substitute. In a way we are part of them, their body, soul and spirit. For 9 months of our lives we feed through them, we hear through them, we sense and feel through them. Experts on the subject would go as far as to say that your character and personality is form by they way you grow in your mother’s womb, if they have a great pregnancy or not, if they play music to you, or talk to you, or even what they eat and how they look after themselves.  There is no other way to look at it; we are part of them.

So I reflected on my bond with my mother, and the bond that exist between my son and my wife. I often remind my children, like I was reminded as a child, that a mother is the most secret person in this world and as such they need to respect her. I also remind them of the selfless acts mothers often do for us, of the unselfishness of their actions and just simply of the enormous sacrifice they made to give us life, to bring us, happy and healthy, into this world. Us men do very little during the pregnancy period, so crucial to the life of every new born human being, the pain and love a mother puts into the birth of a child, is something we could never do. What does this tell you? We owe our lives to women, who through the existence of mankind have given life to all men on earth. We are here because of them.

I entitled my blog this week #realmanrespectwomen, and I use the #tag symbol like others to make a point, not just because those Nigerian man who kidnapped the schoolgirls, but because all men who do not respect women around the world! As I sat in front of the TV looking at this Nigerian man, talk, smiling about selling these women, I happen to have my Facebook page open and I saw a picture of my mother posted by my sister with the caption “I still miss you mum, after all these years”; I lifted my eyes and looked at the man on the screen and I thought “does he not realized that he is only on this earth because a woman, just like the ones he has kidnapped, terrorized and maltreated, brought him into this world? Does he not know that one of those girls could have been his mother and if something had happened to her he would not be breathing today?” and I suddenly felt such anger at someone who’s ignorance is so big that his actions are actually contradicting the natural course of life, someone who, somehow, somewhere, twisted his mentality and turn against the most secret person in this world, a woman, who without her he would not be in this world.

I did said that this blog was not just about the men in Nigeria, but any man who thinks that women are inferior and do not deserve a place in this world. This blog is to make a point that, whilst by coincidence, we had two very different stories running on in social media in the last few weeks; one telling us how some people believe women are inferior to man and treat them like dirt, and an other people celebrate women for giving us life.

I want to send a message to anyone reading this blog that #realmanrespectwomen not because we have been told by society to do so, but because I do believe that, putting aside differences between man and woman, we are only in this world because of our mothers, a female, a woman, who dedicated herself to the beautiful act of giving birth, one of the most selfless acts anyone can do on this earth.

I do hope that the schoolgirls will be released soon, unharmed, and I do also hope that one day all men, no matter where you come from, will understand that they are only on this earth because of a woman brought us into the world.

Join me in #realmenrespectwomen