The women in my family taught me how not to speak.
Through their lives they showed me time and time again that speaking up to the man I your life was not a woman’s place.
Our culture teaches us that women are to serve and please those around them, even if their own pleasure and happiness is compromised.
I believe strongly in the power of speaking up. It sounds obvious but for some, like the women in my family, it is not.Every woman in my family has been a strong woman who had ideas and wasn’t afraid to be vocal about them. They protected and defended their children with a fierceness that made even the strongest of men uneasy. And yet these strong willed women, who are vibrant and full of life turn into deaf mutes when the men in their lives mistreat them.
My great-grandmother raised eight children in the bush of Zimbabwe. For her, educating her children, especially her girls, was the goal of her life. She did this because she knew that an education would make her girls independent and strong, unlike her.
Her husband, a deeply religious, inspirational and strong man, loved her in his own way. But he treated her like a second class individual at times. Their relationship worked, but only because she remained silent about the pain she truly suffered.
For as long as I can remember my great grandmother suffered from mild dementia. She wasn’t crazy, just confused all the time. She was always a silent woman who smiled a lot.
As a young adult I realized her smile was always very sad. I saw her silence as defeat and surrender and I began to believe silence was deadly.I looked at the relationships of her daughters, all married to vocal, intelligent men, just like great granddad. And though these women were all educated and had inner strength, they made no effort when their husbands cut them down. They ignored the bad things their husbands did and pretended life was fine.
They were trapped in what I considered a conscious sort of dementia themselves. Prisoners to their own silences.
I never noticed any of that in myself until I began my adult life and came face to face with my own silence.
I was a painfully quiet, shy kid growing up. And that was fine because I did not feel vulnerable then. But now, at 23, I can see that my silence is falling into that pattern. A generational curse of sorts.
I am afraid that my inability to speak up when I am not happy is going to condemn me to the sad life my matriarchs lived and died in. Your voice is a powerful part of you and needs to be let out.
I am a journalism student because I believe in being the voice for those who cannot or will not be heard by the rest of us. My passion is telling the stories of the underprivileged whose stories are often ignored or told incorrectly. But I have learned to silence my own voice. I have learned how not to speak and at this point in my life I have decided to unlearn the habit.
I have decided to speak up and save myself from my silence. Not only in relationships but in everything. How can I be the voice of the silent when my own is choked up within me?
This I believe, the power of speaking will unshackle me from the curse of my family and lead me to a more meaningful life I can live for myself, and not for the pleasure of others.
So tell me, how do I learn to speak when I am afraid that my voice will destroy me?
Work in Progress.
4 comments:
hi malaika,
is it really as bad as the news tells it right now for zimbabwe? or is it some areas alone?
curious...keep seeing news reports
Very good post.
I had a long comment, but my cat deleted it before I could submit it.
Long story short.....what happens is that one day, a man will come along that will break you. he will be the last in a long line of buttholes that will just break the proverbial straw. That man will teach you that YOU matter. Our parents and grands and so on didn't have the priviledge/curse of dating as much or as long as we do now. Time changes things.
That is a def thing to look forward to...in a sense. I don't look forward to being broken but I do look forward to falling madly in love with myself as a result.
Yeah things back home are as bad as the news says. It used to be that they exaggerated on the news but now things are so bad I cry myself to sleep every night thinking of it all.
God needs to intervene becuase we are so far gone, if He doesn't step in, we may be lost for good.
wow...i'm sorry.
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