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Summary
In this article, the author highlights that the patriarchy assigns women false identities and negative stereotypes, such as the bitter feminist or divorcee. She urges women to reject such labels and make decisions that serve their interests. In such instances, divorce in a bad marriage is a solution, not a problem.
There is something the patriarchy does: it hoists a false identity on us, and then we spend the rest of our lives tone policing ourselves by ourselves, in order not to fit into that false narrative. We end up isolating ourselves from women with shared lived experience as us because we want to show that “We are not like others.”
When the patriarchy decided that divorcees are home wreckers who hate or are jealous of their married friends, it didn’t care about what made that woman run out of her marriage in the middle of the night without slippers; it didn’t care about the personality type of women like Iyabo Ojo, yet what is Iyabo Ojo doing?
She’s busy using her barely legal daughter’s marriage to prove that the false identity and negative stigma attached to a ‘failed marriage & children from failed marriages’ does not define her or her daughter.
Iyabo said to her daughter Your marriage will not fail because I’ve already paid the price for your marriage. Excuse me, how do you pay the price for Someone else’s marriage?
Iyabo is doing everything to ensure Priscilla remains married to a groomer, even though all he has done in the last 2 months is show how controlling he is to the very impressionable & highly naive Priscilla.
In her words, she wanted to break the ‘generational curse’ that children from ‘broken homes’ can’t keep a marriage.
Excuse me?
What curse?
You chose divorce because it was an escape route for you, so why shouldn’t your daughter be entitled to the same escape route if the man becomes abusive? How does a woman choosing life, a second chance, amount to a generational curse?
Let me make this clear: Divorce is not a problem; it is a solution to a problem, that problem being cheating, abandonment, battery, abuse, etc.
So when did it become a curse?
The thing is, that identity was never yours. It was never your burden to bear. (read that again).
I once read a post in which people were asked why they remained friends with their ex. One of the responses stood out to me. The lady said he lied so much to her that it was a painful breakup, but when he asked if they could be friends, she agreed because I didn’t want to come off as a ‘bitter ex’.
I’ve also heard feminists say things like “I’m a feminist with a small f” in a bid to dissociate themselves from who? The man-eating Feminists?
In a comment section on life, bashing divorcees and urging married women not to be friends with divorcees because they will wreck their marriage with bad advice and steal their Husbands, a woman commented that she’s a divorcee, but she doesn’t give her married friends bad advice.
In fact, when they come to her for advice, she advises them to go back to their husbands.
Iyabo Ojo is behaving exactly like this woman. Instead of standing firm as a mother, she’s busy running away from negative stereotypes while the enemy within is busy impregnating & pillaging.
What this set of women is doing is trying to escape a false identity hoisted on them by the patriarchy, and the only way they can do so is by using their own hands to tone police and shortchange themselves.
I genuinely fear that, assuming that Priscilla is abused by her husband, Iyabo Ojo, who is an enlightened woman, will not be a haven for her daughter. She will be busy trying to live vicariously through Priscilla’s marriage because she has not gotten rid of the shame and false identity the patriarchy planted on her head.
Let me tell you that negative stereotypes attached to your situation in life, that stereotype, that shame, it is not yours to bear. Stereotypes like:
- Angry Black woman
- Bitter feminist
- Home wrecking divorcee
- Jealous single friend who gives married friends bad advice.
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
- And other stupid stereotypes
- Promiscuous 30+ year old single woman with high mileage.
Drop the patriarchy’s load for it. It is not yours to bear.
Stop allowing the patriarchy to put you on the defensive. Those negative stereotypes existed way before you were born, and they target victims, victims of men. They were there before you were born and will remain after you die, so they have nothing to do with your personhood or who you are.
You don’t owe the Patriarchy any explanation. And stop putting your children through hell because you want to repair your ‘failures’ through them.
In my previous post, I stated that there’s nothing like a virtuous divorcee, virtuous feminist, virtuous single woman, virtuous child-free woman, virtuous ex-girlfriend, virtuous rape victim who is telling the truth, and there’s nothing you can do to redeem yourself in the eyes of a system bent on vilifying you. So stop making yourself smaller, hoping the Patriarchy will let you like a loyal dog.
Once you fall into these categories, in the eyes of the Patriarchy, you’re the villain. You are trying so hard to prove you do not fit into these stereotypes, which is a futile attempt.
Stop explaining, stop proving yourself. The Patriarchy is not a shareholder in your marriage or life. Stop factoring in what the community will think in your decision-making. The community will be fine. throw away society’s expectations.
If society doesn’t come around, good for it.
Like Mona Elthaway said in 7 Necessary Sins for Women & Girls, “If the community is ready for you, you’re too late.”
Editor’s note: This article was first published on Facebook by the author.
