One of my earliest childhood memories was being hit by my brother. I was watching television and because he was bored he decided to pick on me for sport. Prior to this I remember my parents always stepping in, saying he shouldn’t pick on girls because they can’t fight back. For them, and him, girls were weaker, lesser. That day, I suppose he thought it would be safe as there wasn’t an adult in the in the same room as us to defend me.

He hit me one too many times, and, being my father’s daughter, I ran to tell. My father was tired, probably from the noise and from work. He was short and exasperated in his reply.

“Hit him back.”

I remember seeing the expression on my fathers face. He couldn’t understand why I had not thought of this myself.

I am the oldest child in my family, and, for many years I’ve wondered why I let my brother carry on as he did. Even at that young age I had the authority to stop him. More than that, I was physically able to stop him, but I didn’t. It wasn’t until my father said to hit him back, that it occurred to me that I could.

That moment was the beginning of a change in the way I saw myself as a woman. Empowerment and equality are not concepts that easily occur to a seven year old, but in that moment, I experienced both. I was not weaker, I was not ‘just a girl’, I was equal to the one who was hitting me. I was equal enough to hit him back.

Empowerment for women should not start when they are adults. It is too late then to undo a lifetime of being made to think that one is weaker in mind and body. To try to undo the work of well meaning but misguided parenting, and social and cultural indoctrination when girls have become women and boys have become men has little effect on present and future generations. Men and women will continue to live as their parents did. They will raise their children the same way they were raised. As adults they seek the security and common identity that are provided by their parents traditions.

Empowerment for women begins when they are girls. Before women are distinguishable from men. Before either knows that they are different from the other.

This entry was posted on June 2nd, 2010 at 3:38 pm by Upenyu Makoni-Muchemwa and is filed under Reflections, Uncategorized, Women's issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.