Patience Phiri
Zimbabwe
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how we are a society that blames and shames victims of abuse when they come forward especially if the perpetrators are our favs.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how we are said to be overreacting when we speak out about that those who are supposed to be protecting us yet are the very ones violating us. Where are we supposed to turn to or report?
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address the way men are so free to physically touch or grope us or fondle us and when we express we don’t like it they call us ugly names and cry-babies that can’t take a joke.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how rapists are the only reason rape occurs. It has absolutely nothing to do with what one is wearing or where they are or what they drank. Instead of going on and on about what shouldn’t do so they don’t get raped, why don’t we shout from the mountain tops that men must not rape women?
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how no matter how hard we work and put in the time we will amount to nothing because we are nobodies. For as long as are not born into it or married to it or sleeping with it or introduced and vouched for into it or runners to it, we will be forever the hungry and exhausted foot soldiers always pushed to the front to die overwhelmed by debt.
One day when I have strength, I want us to address how horrible husbands at home make for heart melting boyfriends 3 houses down. The behaviours of these mean bone breaking, neck choking, soul crushing, promiscuous super sperm shooters is an open secret yet we keep our mouths shut and look to the side because ‘it is personal business’. How many women do we need to bury for us to finally say ENOUGH!
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how women focused organisations led by our ‘big sisters’ are toxic AF spaces. They break us (women) into smithereens and when they go out to the world, they teach the world to respect women. They don’t pay the women who work with/ for them, yet bark at everyone else to pay women accordingly. They don’t want us to grow within the organisation because they are holding on to positions harder than Robert Mugabe held onto power. They call for change but can’t even spell it in their spaces of influences. Think about the women heading women focused organisations, how long have they been there? Do you see them leaving anytime soon? My point exactly! As long as they sit on their thrones like the Queen Bees they are, we all have to march to their tune as we are afraid to speak out against them for fear of being blacklisted and called patriarchy enablers.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how our ideas and concepts are stolen by those supposedly mentoring us and when we raise alarm nobody comes to our rescue because they are afraid to mess up their future. The big fish feed on the little fish with fresh ideas and refuse to acknowledge and pay them. Their bellies are full but we are hungry.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how in this day and age of HIV/AIDS men are still stealthing us. For how long will you tell us about your allergies to latex and how condoms make you soft? Like seriously, how many more children do you want? One day your dicks will shrivel and finally fall off.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how we are not ok but are forced to wear heavy masks to cover up. How we are all chipping away but cannot ask for help as we will be ridiculed for being sissies. How we are mentally exhausted from trying to make it through the day and like chitty chitty bang bang, trying to make a dollar out of 15c. How we are filling the gaping hole in our souls with self-harming practises but we have given up on giving any more fucks. All we are chasing now is an escape, even if it’s for a fleeting moment.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how we always tell people in abusive relationships (especially women) to leave yet we have no support structures in place to assist them once they are out. Instead we are the first in line to turn our backs on them and ridicule them for leaving a good life just because of a ‘few skirmishes’.
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address NOT the number of half-naked women on the streets selling their bodies at all hours of the day or the increase in drug and alcohol abuse in our country BUT the reasons why this is so. Who is to blame for the high unemployment rate? Who is to blame for the hopelessness? Who is making money from all these drugs? Who is paying for sex? Who is bearing the brunt for all this societal decay in the country? When will it end? Will it ever end? Will we survive it? Do we want to survive it?
One day when I have the strength, I want us to address how thugs and gangsters have become the ones we look up to because of their flashy lifestyles and shiny cars. They now sit in parliament and have pictures shaking hands with the leaders of the country when honest hardworking citizens are breaking their backs trying to survive on the Zimbabwean Dollar salary in a United States Dollar economy (current rate – USD$1:ZWD5,000+ on the black market).
One day, I will have the strength…