Anthony Joshua and the Rest of Us

“Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” – Gloria Steinem

Women from my father’s community are greeted with the title, “ingini oy’ego”. It’s supposed to be a status symbol to be called an “ingini”. When I was much younger, whenever my mom wanted to psyche me into doing something I didn’t feel like or want to do, she’d begin heaping praises including the prized “ingini oy’ego” on me. It would take me years to learn its true connotation and come to rebel against everything it stood for.

Ours is a society that conditions young girls to aspire to marriage. A society that conditions women to believe that marriage to a man is the ultimate goal, the completion of their beings, as though they become damaged goods should they fail to marry. I tacitly began to rebel against that “title” that pegged me and other women literally as money making machines. Said money coming into the family upon payment of our “bride price”.

This past weekend, boxing darling Anthony Joshua got into hot water over an interview he gave in which he admitted treating his son and niece differently. In his words, “my view is you have to be a good woman, respectful, one day you will be someone’s wife, you have to learn family morals… what it is to be a good woman”. As for his son Joseph, “he’s going to be a man’s man, he’ll want to spread his wings, be a Jack-the-lad, build his character” but “there is none of that …. nonsense for her (his niece)”.

Everyone was quick to condemn him but are we doing any better in raising our own kids? Are house chores still the woman’s prerogative in our homes? Are our sons still crossing their legs in front of the flat screen or on their Play Station while our daughters slave away in the kitchen? Are we still expecting a measure of decorum and decency from our daughters while our sons get a get out of jail free card? Are our daughters still being treated as wives in training without ever becoming their own persons first?

We are no “ingini oy’ego”. We are our own women. We have dreams, aspirations, desires that stretch outside of marriage to a man. Heck, we might even marry other women. We need to do better in training girls. We should teach them to aspire to much more than a last name. We need to do better at raising our kids. Boys and girls alike, should be given the same opportunities and privileges.

Being the Other Woman II

After that initial encounter, I got to know he was married with kids, which only made him much more irresistible. Ours was a whirlwind romance; it was almost as if we knew we were living on borrowed time so we had to maximise every opportunity we had.

Maybe it’s the fact that what we had was “illicit”, but sex with Dayo was something special! Every encounter was like a journey, a learning moment, a quest to see how wild we could drive each other.

One particular evening, he came to see me right after he got off work, and immediately he got inside my apartment, he reached for me and began kissing me and fondling my breasts. No words, just actions. He paused long enough to take off my clothes and his, and lay me on the couch. He returned to my lips while his hand reached in between my legs. That was enough motivation to make me let out a deep throated moan as I arched my back and jutted up my pelvis for more contact with his torturous fingers. He needed no further encouragement. With fevered haste, he reached for his wallet from where he produced a prophylactic, sheathed himself and flipped me over on my stomach.

I had had sex. Like a lot to probably last two life times but with Dayo, it was different. He had a knack for rocking my world. Whenever we made the beast with two backs, we were one. There was no him and no me. There was no telling where he stopped and I began. All inhibitions, doubts, fears and anxieties evaporated. For a few short minutes, we were without a care in the world. We were lost in the decadent bliss of each other’s body.

And afterwards I would be left wondering if there was a future for us besides mindless romps in the sheets. I was beginning to fall in love with him. A kind of love that was accompanied by hate. I hated that a normally articulate me got tongue tied whenever I tried to explain us. I mean, I had a 4.0 GPA and graduated in the top 1% of my class. I am no fool. I know my place – I am the other woman. The one he can’t take to his house. The one he can’t take as his plus one for office parties. The one no one knows about.

I hated that I was beginning to need to be more. I hated that I loved him too much to get out of what seemed like harmless fun in the beginning. I hated that I had begun to compare other men to him and realised that they didn’t hold a candle to him. I hated that I wanted a life with someone else’s man. I had come to the conclusion that I hated being the other woman. There was only one thing left to do.