African Writers: Promoting writing to excellence

African Writers: Promoting writing to excellence: As a published author, I pride in the profession, that like most arts have helped to preserve history. On thing I lament though is that Afri...

African Writers: Celebrating Women's Month

African Writers: Celebrating Women's Month: As we enter the month of August, there is a bit of warmth in the air, the days are getting slightly longer and it is of course accompanied b...

Celebrating Women's Month

As we enter the month of August, there is a bit of warmth in the air, the days are getting slightly longer and it is of course accompanied by the wind. But that is nothing to be gloomy about as we have had a fairly not so bad winter with a bit of rain once or twice depending on the region one is in. As a woman it is rather intimidating to write about 'women' as a subject. But of course it has to be done one way or another without shying away from the topic. the women's month is celebrated more in a political context, as it was in acted by celebrating women's day, thereby recalling the historic March to the Union Building in 1956 regarding the pass-laws. The women were indeed united as they stood together from different backgrounds and races. They spoke with one voice and to-date we commemorate their bravery. As the rest of the month is noted as a women's month, one has to now ask if indeed we are not just re-celebrating the some women in our modern era over and over. Most hold white colour jobs, drive big cars and have big titles. These are barely a fraction of the rest of the woman population. We are celebrating the same icons and forget those others that do not march the corporate profile. The women that carry the world on their shoulder's in hardship? The ones that wake up {some as early as 3am} to get to work so that some of the high profile women that will be fortunate enough to even attend dinner gala's to give them awards for indeed being women of substance work for. Without those poor, little hands of the women that stay the day looking after their homes, the high calibre women would not be able to carry out their work without worrying about their little fine loved one's be it in day care or at home. Much as the high flying women are celebrated in this month, the focus is also on Domestic Violence and abuse, that takes place against the woman. Are women making the right choices or is the pressure to succeed causing an escalating high rate of violence against women. As we celebrate women we should look on the overall if we are succeeding in educating the girl child- eradicating poverty and making the life of the woman safer. More emphasis needs to be made about the basic needs of the woman to curb human trafficking- educating the girl child goes beyond the classroom- but as an instrumental child who will one day be called a woman and help shape the future of another being her children or children from her neighbourhood. Women need to take pride in their previously sterior types of careers such as being educators, working in the medical industry and most of all home makers. Today it is not difficult for a stay home mother to also engage in small easy to run business even online to help maintain the cash flow. Of course the culture in which a girl child is born will also to some extent limit the goals the girl child will pursue- but at the end of the day- the woman needs to be more determined than ever to work towards excellence in every sphere of life which begins with an own inward look into one personally and not by another.