What is wrong with being a woman

Every problem with the world today is traceable to the loss of our wumanity. What is it in wumanity that defines our humanity? It is simply the humanity in wumanity. What is this humanity? Kindness, the natural maternal instinct and feelings that we have for others.

That womanhood has been associated with a myriad of unpleasant projections is not enough a ground for the rejection of your femininity. Your focus should be on the side of womanhood that not only rejects the evil societal paintings but also launches a continuous campaign for the maintenance of the positive images of women.

Come to think of how the earth, celestial bodies, seas, continents and countries are traditionally regarded as a woman. They are so called because of their regenerative and life-giving-and-saving characteristics. Take the sun for example, she has to eat herself to produce more of herself.

That is, the sun continuously burns herself in order to produce energy (more of herself for human and universal use) otherwise, she would have long gone out of existence. The sea deposits herself in different portions of the world in form of lagoons, rivers, lakes etc.

All of these different bodies of waters always find their ways back to the mother sea. The earth herself and everything in her is called Mother Nature. Trees spring from her core just as human beings open her bowels in order to extract mineral resources. She is so kind every food that sustains us, her children, is gotten from her life-preserving force.

School subjects such as philosophy, history, and languages are regarded as liberal arts. Through them, we study ideas and cultures. There is a suggestion, by the semantic consequences of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘humanities’ that thoughts, ideas, cultures, languages and everything artistic is feminine.

The temperament of an average woman is considered artistic since art is believed to be a venture into a world built to appeal to emotions. This does not mean that all science oriented courses are masculine as we now have the influx of more women in Engineering, Mathematics and other courses that require the constant use of the reasoning faculty.

Many females are mere women not mothers. This is perhaps one of the things wrong with the concept of womanhood. Nature is not just regarded as a woman but mother. Anybody can be a woman, very few can be mothers. It is not enough to conceive and give birth to babies (that is merely being a woman), you are to nurture the babies to a satisfactory point.

Yet being a mother goes beyond bearing and nurturing biological children of your own. You must begin to extend your maternal hand toward children that are not biologically yours. It is so unmotherly to conclude that you can only care for your biological children when there are many orphans out there who ache for the warmth of a mother every day.

What I find amusing about some women is their interpretations of feminism. It is not despicable to ask for the same opportunities, rights and power that men enjoy but when this is taken beyond reasonable limits, it becomes a totally different kettle of fish.

Feminism is not the mathematics of man equals woman or woman equals man. If one exactly equals another, there would have been no need for two genders. The best version of this equation is: woman complements man. A and B are both letters of English Alphabet but A does not equal B just as B is not A. If that was the case, one of the letters would have been canceled from the English Alphabet. The relationship is not that of equality but complementarity.

The word here is ‘complement’ meaning something that perfects or completes another thing. In a simple term, man and woman are meant to complete or perfect each other. That is why a sensible man refers to his wife as his better half. The man is just incomplete without his better other half. This completeness is found in many things. There is no way you want to write the word ‘woman’ without adding the word ‘man,’ just as the word ‘female’ cannot be accurately spelt without the addition of ‘male.’

In an ideal circumstance, woman and man cannot have a baby without a unification of their bodies in sexual intercourse. There are also life situations that the man cannot shoulder alone, here is where the function of the helpmeet comes in. The same goes for the woman. You cannot become a man until you have met and experienced the better half of you. It is the same way you cannot become a woman until you have met and experienced the better half of you. This does not mean being or becoming a man or woman does not have higher definitions. This is however a basic definition, the one sanctioned by nature.

Mother Nature already designed everything in shapes, textures, sizes and colours that hint at their functionality. The mouth opening is not the same as that of the nostril because primarily, the mouth is meant for food and speech while the nostril is to aid our breathing in and out. Birds are naturally wired to fly in the sky, snakes are naturally designed to slitter on the earth.

Let a snake remain a snake and a bird a bird. Therefore, dear woman, you have been designed by nature to be vulnerable, tender, beautiful, passionate, and loving. Why covet the man's position? What the man needs is who you are designed to be.

He does not need your trying to be like him. Relationship is about plus and minus not plus and plus. No matter how aggressively you fight to be like a man, you can never be a man. The closest you can get is being LIKE one. The frantic struggle to be or beat the man is a fierce attempt at self-rejection.

When you reject femininity what you inadvertently embrace is inhumanity. You have to learn the art of being happy and content with who you are originally designed to be. If you reject yourself you should not expect me to accept you. It is the same as if you cannot love yourself please do not demand or expect love from me.

Omidire, Idowu Joshua is a social critic and editor. His works have appeared in different online magazines. Writing is his thing.