If you thought women were
the weaker sex, just think again
So much for the characterisations of women as the weaker sex. If that may be so, Ugandan women, supposedly crafted from a man’s rib-cage, were obviously not clued in.
In little and big ways, Ugandan women are on a roll. They are doing better in school, they are first in line for plum jobs, they are joining politics, they own big properties, a few have kept men – they are generally taking charge.
The babes are also causing some big waves. A recent report published in Mukono District, south of Kampala, revealed that at least 1,682 men were battered by their wives in 2003. The men’s ‘crimes’ were mostly drunkenness and the inevitable lack of interest in bed.
"The trend of women battering their husbands is increasing. We are soon going to carry out sensitisation seminars about the dangers of this," the District Probation Officer was quoted in the local press.
The irony of a statement about seminars for rampaging women must have been lost on the gentleman. But the larger truth is that Ugandan women, once content to lie back and be used by drunken spouses, now expect them not only to be up for it, but also be coherent and respectful, or woe betide the thick-headed among them.
Kenyans might be familiar with the so-called acid attack, where a woman attacks her rival with acid with the intent of disfiguring her, making her ghastly and undesirable for the man they share.
Lately, however, more and more Ugandan men are turning up in hospital with acid burns – mostly the handiwork of wives, fed up with their cheating ways, or girlfriends tired of feeding on the same tired line of: "I am about to leave her for you."
The girls are also sticking it to the men through the judiciary. They no longer fade into the night once the man has sated his pelvic hunger, thank you!
The most recent and probably most famous case is that of a big man in President Yoweri Museveni’s government who was being hauled before a judge early this month. He was forced to show cause why he should not be declared a 'dead-beat dad'.
See, like many men, Mr Big Man had an affair with a beautiful and unworldly young woman. Four years and two little ones later, however, the big man was good to go. His paramour was probably good to go too, but demanded that he pay her fare. With a little help from the Federation of Ugandan Women Lawyers, the woman ascertained through DNA testing what she already knew – her former lover was 99.99 per cent the father of her two children. She demanded child support worth about Ksh650 per month, and when he reneged on the hush-hush January deal, took him to open court. The jury is still out, but there is no doubting the ramifications. In any case, the media has already hang him out to dry with banner headlines of the woman and her young children.
Of course our big man will not lose his job for being unfaithful to his wife. But that he has not been reprimanded, first for denying his obvious paternity, and later for child neglect, is now the fodder for radio talk shows. It’s also indicative of the long road Ugandan men still need to travel before good sense catches up with the fruit of their exertions.
Anyway, with men like these, is it a wonder that women are experimenting? First with their own bodies (they are doing pretty well in San Francisco), and then with attempts to replace man as the other factor in procreation equation (male scientists around the world are feverishly cloning themselves out of importance).
The Ugandan women will not scale that scientific plateaux for a while yet. But they are doing it just like James Bond would. They are becoming what Susan Mushart referred to as the "sperm thieves" in her book Wife Work; What Marriage Really Means for Women.
Ms Mushart is a middling woman with two children from two previous marriages. She contends that instead of women going into marriage with an eye on the lived-happily-ever-after, they should start off with the assumption that it won’t work, and get the lasting symbol of man’s union with woman. Enter her sperm thieves.
Some Ugandan girls have already heard Ms Mushart. They enter relationships with the specific intention of getting out. They don’t need money or security because they are young, educated, they hold nice jobs, and quite frankly, prefer the company of "the girls" to that of drooling men on a Friday night. "So this is what he really wants? Well, let him have it and we can all be on our merry way!"
The flood-gates are closed still yet, but there is no doubting the trend: more and more young women prefer getting a child with a man with good bones and no history of mental illness – nothing more. Because Ugandan law allows mothers to keep the child until it is 18, it would be too late for the donor to make a male impression.
For the young Ugandan men in question, nothing is more humiliating than being led to the chamber to stud, and being led out again before the night is over. It probably beats being beaten up.
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Mr Kyazze is former Editor of Sunday Monitor, and now a journalism lecturer at Rhodes University in South Africa.
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