To be a man should be easy!

It’s not easy to be a man is a cliché I have been made to internalize since childhood but going forward, I have come to realize that it was one of the many ways the men have employed to stay ahead of the women pack. At least it used to be true in the past but I think times have changed and it has ceased to apply.

In times past, women were housewives or helped out with family businesses and were mostly

excused because of their biological make up. Women take time off to breed babies, take time off during menstrual periods since most are characterized by sicknesses. They also take time off to take care of the house which in itself is a full time job; bathing two or more children at least twice a day, bathing and taking care of themselves to still look attractive and youthful for the men, do all the family laundry, make sure there is always food, patch every torn garment there is, make sure their men are sexually satisfied every time their libido requires to be attended to, keep the house clean and orderly and the list is endless.

In view of the foregoing it could also be argued that providence for the house exclusively became a man’s job. A man makes sure even against all odds that his family is well fed, they have a roof that wont leak which also dodouble as a chimney, a place to sleep, has to ensure that there is enough food for the household and solely responsible for their protection against any harm. The man is compelled to be the hero of the family, to take good decisions whose benefits will inure to the family’s benefit and the list again is exhaustive.

Fast forwarded to now and nothing has really changed except a subtle agitation in the women folk to really have a feel of what manhood feels like – acting and feeling like men, thus usurping most of their roles. Even though it smacks of pulling leverage, most women are now working in one form or the other to contribute in the upkeep of the house or to at least fend for themselves which used to be the preserve of the men. Most women are now educated and appreciably intelligent and are helping their husbands/men build empires.

And in spite of some limitations in their famed “what men can do, women can do better” mantra, which some of them like to brandish at every instance, it can be argued out that women work like their male counterparts and are exposed to every danger like everyone else. Their tendency to be damned by irresponsible men who are not men enough to take care of their own children and the crudeness they are exposed to when ruthless men rape them has even made them more endangered than the mythic Dinosaurs.

Aside the natural forces women have to face on every day basis, they also face discrimination in all forms. It is a known fact that women are harassed, intimidated and exploited for sex at work places and even at Churches. They are also beaten, abused, assaulted and subjected to all kinds of ordeal by men. It is also notable how the womenfolk are relegated to the back of the burner except for the new breed who would not allow these gender cards to be played in their faces – the Feminists.

Whereas, men are preferred than their female counterparts when it comes to employment, they are also faced with a glass ceiling that does not allow them to really climb the career ladder or rise to higher positions in their various endeavors - and while they are still being tagged as weak, panic-stricken, impatient in some cases, their mortality rate still stands higher than that of their male counterparts but I am yet to really hear them coin anything like being a woman is herculean or a curse.

So my question which has become the thrust of this write-up is, if women go through all of these things just to be accepted as women of good standing, why then would their male counterparts be shouting from the rooftops with Chinese megaphones reminding everybody how difficult it is to be a man? Is it to court the sympathy of the womenfolk who already have a lot on their plates?

In the face of all these oddities, methinks being a man is the easiest. I also think being a man should comparatively be easier because while at it, they don’t have to periodically bleed amidst agonizing pains in the middle of a meeting. Men also have an array of jobs to choose from that is why until now, when a woman ventures into a male dominated field, their profession is preceded by their gender such as Female Driver, Female Carpenter, Female Electrician, Female Boss et al.

Finally, I think it is time for the men to look at the positive sides of their gender and count themselves blessed by not pathetically clinging on to the cliché “to be a man is not easy” because I maintain that being a man should be easy by all means necessary at least while society is still patriarchal.

 writer tweets @vilejah

Sexing with the Christian

when is it right to have sex, especially for the married couples who are making so much or too little sex break their marriages? 

Should you give in to your spouse’s demands for sex just because the bible has decreed that the body you wield is not yours, but that of your significant other?

How can we salvage the perversion and its related pornography making rounds in the house of the Lord?

Society has undergone an acute change depending on your knowledge or lack of it. People are being encouraged to be vocal and to possibly lay bare every thought that passes through their minds all in the name of expressing one's fundamental human rights - irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. Just say it by all means...

It has even become a serious situation in our modern dispensation where women engage in more lucrative and sophisticated ventures than their male counterparts who have become emotional - a feat they have achieved above their forebears who did all the menial work and nothing much. Either these forebears did not really use their creative faculties that much or were not allowed by the men to use them or both. There could even be more contributive factors but that will be treated under a different subject matter at a different time.

Even though these changes can be grouped into the positives and negatives, they are ghastly weighing down the law and order and even the trends of old. This change irrespective of what one believes in has influenced society and by extension, our lives.

Be it a Christian, an atheist, a Buddhist and the other millions of religions that abound, human beings are endowed with varying degrees of energy and physique which directly bears on how much we can put in and even take out. For instance, when emotions blind two different people at the extreme ends of the gender parameter to come together as a man and a woman, coupled with desires to match, then your guess would be as good as mine.

 

As much as there is no gainsaying why a man and a woman would want to relate intimately, it is also imperative to note that two different people cannot always be ready for sex at the same time, which makes it difficult for couples to sustain a relationship in many cases. And it is rightfully so because the degrees of the difference in timing and its related tardiness becomes a surety that erodes the very foundation of the union. Simply, it breeds mistrust issues.

It is however interesting to know that, aside energy, desire, experiences, age, culture, expectations, availability, reciprocity and accessibility which influences how much we are willing to have sex, work issues have also waded in to confound the already labouring situation. This means, there is the probability that one of the couple is always almost tired or disinterested in sex which breeds apathy out of the constant rejection or inability to give or be ready, even when it matters most.

You would then realize that the Inability of one of them to respond "how deep?" when asked to dig, becomes the Achilles heels of the union. 

As a matter of fact, The Bible has failed to prescribe how sex should be practiced and all the other nuances regarding it, but has explicitly stated that sex is for procreation and shall remain the preserve of the married but it appears the unmarried Christians are having it too. There is even the likelihood that they are having it more than the married couples because of their zest, energy and mostly their purpose, which is the pleasure they derive from engaging in it.

For a Christian, it must be very difficult being caught between your penchants and God's directives even though they have from time immemorial proven how well versed they are in selective pragmatism - doing only what pleases them and relegating the ones they can’t do to the back. 

Why is Christendom looking on for their very foundation (future leaders) to crumble? Have they given up on the fight to ensure that every chosen one upholds the tenets of the Christian faith? Has Christendom being swallowed up by the world out there or they don’t even believe the gospel anymore? Something tells me, they are putting God to test to ascertain if he is really the true forgiving God he claims to be.

Thanks to the power of technology, sex is now commonplace like a flicker of fire in a mud hut razing down nations of which the Christendom is a minute part, so how are they going to survive this inferno when the opposite is what they are expected to do? 

Sometimes, it appears the Christian is the most ignoramus and most confused person to ever walk the face of the earth but that would be under-estimating their presence and what can become of them.

To be continued…

The Writer tweets @vilejah

Are we really co-equals?

“Tweeeeea, are we co-equals?” is a phrase almost every Ghanaian can identify with.  Its popularity even soared when one obscured government official burst out the phrase amidst other vituperations in response to a taunt from the audience while honoring his call to duty at a public function – an act that eventually got him trending for days to come and every observer of our Country knows this by now. The mudslinging comments and its parallel self-righteous postures were enough to hang the man on a pillory.

Since when did public officials started carrying themselves above their subjects – the people they were chosen to serve? While practically begging for our support, they also vow to serve us even through rough times. Public officials must comport themselves even in the face of all indignation and must be modest about their business at all times. Such uncouth behavior is unbecoming of public officials who cannot take a joke, they must learn to suffer fools and work on their sense of humour. Infact! They have to move out of the Kitchen if they find it hot enough!

Then you take a long walk the next day and start asking yourself some obvious but hidden rhetoric such as “are we really co-equals?” and granted that we are co-equals, shouldn’t respect be reciprocal? Does ascendance to public office immune people from public ridicule? Is the high tide of democracy also sweeping away our morals which were hitherto the pillars of our culture or we have just given in to the global movement?

 What happened to our class society or we are just a bunch of lying hypocrites who will practice politics of convenience instead of principles? Methinks, anybody who holds on to the fallacious notion that we are all equals must have their heads examined and all illusory thoughts gotten rid of. We may be one but are not and cannot be equals!

God in his own infinite wisdom created us with varying differences to distinguish each of us from one another; same God who created the low and the high born, angels and archangels, the graceful and the ugly, the weak and the strong, the giant and the dwarf and what have you, so why the tenacious stance that we are all equals?

consequently, If ever the phrase “we own the people who own the town” rings a bell, then be reminded that, your favorite bakery is owned by someone who sometimes buys goods on credit from his/her suppliers and if that is far-fetched then be reminded that your pay cheque is signed by someone who is sanctioned by another man in that order.

If indeed God made us equal simply because we all have attributes of humans, then it will be a perversion against the divine plan to have all these Caucasians, Blacks, Dwarves, Giants and Gays fighting on continuous basis to entrench their varied differences. In same vein, it would be wrong for you to look at that unkempt guy across the street and say he is not your type, likewise would it be wrong for a guy to say, someone does not belong to his class. It actually behooves us to do unto others what we expect them to do unto us.

Thus far anybody who thinks we are co-equals is a Populist and should be dismissed summarily. They just like to create trouble where there should be none and also like to over-estimate their self-importance but one friendly advice to them is, they should find their rank and file and feel at home for some people are way elevated beyond our class and level.

 The writer tweets @vilejah