Glam Africa: The Revolutionary Edition (2019)

FEATURE STORY
WOMEN
WANTING
MORE
What’s your status?
Married! Taken!
BY TUMININU OLAOSHUN
It’s Complicated! Boss Babe!
Our generation seem to be quite unique and the atmosphere
seems ripe for the NEW black woman. Hashtags such
as #bossbabe, #blackgirlmagic #queening are being
used everywhere, and thanks to Ciara's recent exploits, it
seemd the bloggosphere is currently competing for who can
#levelup the most. These tags are pulling in more interaction
on Instagram, and to quote one of my favourite memes,
“what a time to be alive!”.
With more and more women getting married at later stages
in life (with the average age at which a woman marries is
now 35) it is clear that the traditional tale of the young girl
who goes to school, gets a qualification, works for a bit,
gets married, becomes mother and then lives happily-ish
ever after, is one for our parents’ or even grandparents'
generation.
As we get older, we are having more candid conversations
with the matriarchs of our families. Many of our mothers and
grandmothers, are sharing their desires and their regrets,
reflections on their past years, and wishing they had had the
opportunity to do more (yet ironically, they continue to share
their concerns about the fact that we’re still single). We're
in the middle of an uprising, and young people all over the
diaspora are shouting from the rooftops, “I will not inherit
the silence of my mother!”. With the influx of educational
programmes addressing the age-old problems of sexism,
racism, and in the words of Yanick St-Jean the 'double
burden' (where she explores the "difficulties in the hiring
and promoting process, racial and sexual discrimination at
work, and feelings of isolation and exclusion") it’s clear this
conversation and re-education is essential and desperately
overdue. While I am not in full agreement with the notion
that the ‘future is female’, at least there is an understanding
that the future needs better-treated females - and I am all for
this process of enlightenment.
So bringing us back to 2019 - the last year of the decade
- the powers that be, influencers on the ‘Gram, are urging
us to “take the risk, sis... we only have a few months until
the end of the decade, sis...” and the like. Personally, I
am pleased to see that many of us are taking the plunge. I
would like to think that we are doing and saying things that
our mothers only dreamt of doing and saying, and doing
so proudly. And the best part is that we are setting an even
greater precedent for those coming up behind us, just like the
amazing women before us did.
However, in the mix of “taking that risk”, amidst building
myself spiritually throughthe teachings of The Bible, whilst
climbing the ladder of success and building my Instagram,
I do wonder if we are doing ‘too much’ for our male
counterparts? I also wonder, if we are too concerned with
getting it all now instead of growing in seasons. In other
words, does our growing repertoire make us too much of a
woman to handle? And do we have to pressurise ourselves
by expecting everything right away?
I dare to wonder that perhaps more of us would be married
earlier, if only we spent more time doing what our mothers
had done, perhaps maybe our stories would be a little
different? Are we doing too much too soon?
There has been an loud yet often-quite command that
requires women to be a little more quiet, a little more calm.
When you view this in the context of women of colour,
then that command can be overbearing. Whilst I am all
for decorum, some of these societal and cultural norms can
be stifling, to say the least. The moment we step out of the
norm, we are questioned as if something is wrong with us,
or we receive an unwelcome and unsolicited opinion from
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