Ozoro Festival, SA's, and Why We Cry (1)

Maya Angelou tells us "why the caged bird sings."

From the Akpabio saga to Umahi and other issues, I have read mixed reactions from people who ask why we become "hysterical" about any women's issue. This post can't carry the full weight of the litany of reasons, but I will highlight a few.

We cry because issues of SA’s trigger trauma that is viscerally coded and locked up in the bodies of almost every woman. A time she was touched inappropriately. A season she was fondled without consent, care, or connection. Times she swallowed shame with silence because the stigma of SA was on women rather than the perpetrators.

We weep because of women whose abusers threatened to go public, assuring them that “you go explain tire, no evidence.” We lament because of victims taunted and haunted by a shame, stigma, and terror that was never theirs to carry.

Our rage comes from centuries of repressed anger, shame, and danger. We remember silenced stories of our mothers and aunties, secrets and shame carried without a place to lay them. For every SA, we relive the trauma of things swallowed with saliva of " ka sa ma dupe."

We tremble for women who carried heavy secrets in silence to their graves. Women whose cemeteries may (not) bloom with flowers but carried gloom and doom inside despite their beautiful outward appearance in their lifetime.

You are worried that we easily believe any woman because many women are reminded of when they were not believed.

We somersault for women forced into marital rape because their husbands believe “I paid her bride price” was a lifetime subscription to sex and nullifies consent.

We cry for women probed and violated during routine medical examinations.

We are enraged with fury because of the voyeuristic assault by eyes that undress women every day on the streets and corners across cities and villages.

We become discombobulated because of women who were not allowed to cry, groan, or moan about their pain privately or publicly.

We cry for women who shriek and curl up at genuine and intimate touch because they can’t forget the violent intimacy of the past.

Our hysteria is for women whose trauma won’t allow them to orgasm and for those who see the face of their abuser in every man.

We “baraje” for women who have become promiscuous because they reason, "If someone took it without consent, I might as well give it to anyone who asks."

We lash out because SA (re)freshes memories that should never have existed.

Women who can't cry out yet still care about the image of their abuser while seeking help with "hide my identity."

Our rage is for girls almost SA'd by their fathers before they knew the label of the act was xincest.

Every new report of SA conjures imagery of the fury of the past and fear now for our daughters and in the future.

We cry for lesbian women subjected to corrective Xrape

But like my picture, we also smile because the next generation won’t have to start where we began.