Woman is a Mystery

Woman is a mystery. Yes, the grammar is correct because she is, of women. She is many women. She is the plural. She reproduces many women who also produce women, and men.

Men are an after thought precisely because they live independently courtesy of royalty, customs, tradition and religion. They have their own sleeping quarters. There are no romantic expectations of breakfast in bed. In traditional Africa wives had their own houses within a man’s compound. King Charles 111 and Queen Camilla live in different spaces under one castle roof, so do dukes and duchesses in present-day England. One religion calls for total separation of women and men and only meet when there’s a need, the man’s need.

This ancient separation of the sexes supposedly denotes inferiority or oppression. Not necessarily. Men know women are a mystery they can never unravel. They hate the dependency. They cannot survive without women, but women do very well on their own. Polygamy should be seen in that context. Men cannot stay without. That’s why they need other wives if No. 2 just had a baby, and has to heal for six months.

She doesn’t have postpartum depression because the baby is the priority, not a full grown man called the husband. He is not needed during this period and culturally, he cannot even sneak in to look at his son. Son? Yes, because male is the preferred gender. There you go, isn’t it proof that men oppress women, that’s why they don’t want baby girls?

They prefer sons for solidarity. It is self-oppression. It is centuries-old frustration that they cannot understand a whole group of human beings. Women. They cannot put a finger on the mystery.

Woman is a mystery because she is quiet, something that is hard to believe because of loud women online and women that specially act for the camera. These are exceptions to the rule. Women are quiet because they are happier in their mystery, especially when men say: “You’re quiet.”

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.