Page 24 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 1

ISSUE ONE | JULY/AUG

re-defining

FE-MI-NINI-TY

THE FEMALE SIDE OF GOD

By Chioma Phillips

hen I was a mediators of this sad, limiting and rules of engagement.
girl, I had a lot disturbing covenant, were (and
of conflicting still are) women. And then I understood something.
data about Feminists included. Not one human who had laid out or
Wwhat it means enforced these things had a clue
to be a woman. It’s a long tiring list I grew up around boys, I had what they were talking about, what
that I can only include a (very brief) thoughts and ideas that rarely they were doing, why they were
sample of. Women are: supposed fitted in to the (ever expanding) doing it... not one. Every single
to be in the kitchen, beautiful, list above. I read books, watched last one of them had created a
clean and neat, entertaining, movies and listened to music contextual hybrid that they used
well dressed and composed and that certainly all contributed to to ‘define the feminine’ and had
turned out, able to produce strong the distortions. And I was one laid out guidelines by which this
healthy boys, look after everyone, confused little girl, who eventually imposter to femininity - the anti-
please everyone (parents and in- grew up into one confused woman feminine - was meant to operate
laws included), stand by their man who was often greatly exploited under. And I couldn’t take it
‘no matter what’, be strong yet by the community around her - anymore.
weak, hard to get but not too hard, who were equally confused in
great in bed and in the kitchen, their own right, but because they Thankfully, God had mercy on
not be too fat or too thin, not be had accepted and were playing by me and put an end to my misery
too tall or too short, not sit or lie the rules around them... life was by showing me one crucial thing,
or eat or talk ‘like that’, be hard to much easier for them. Coming to His original intention, contained in
get but not ‘too hard to get’, strong, ‘salvation’ didn’t change much. If these passages:
joyful... the list goes on depending anything it made it worse, because
on family, community, tribe, tongue now I needed to do all these things Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said,
and nation. ‘as unto Christ’ and because I really “Let Us make man in Our image,
wanted to please Him, I sweated to according to Our likeness; let them
The funny thing is that though make all these things perfect and have dominion over the fish of the
most of these ‘standards’ of precise, ‘in the Lord’. And I was sea, over the birds of the air, and
the feminine were defined and tired! I oscillated between rebellion over the cattle, over all the earth
outlined by men ... and mostly against and conformity to (and and over every creeping thing
made up along the way - a lot yes, to my shame, enforcement that creeps on the earth.” So God
of the time, the enforcers and of) these most stupid and obtuse created man in His own image; in
24 HEALING - RESTORING - REBIRTHING - AFRICA