Finding Feminism amongst Sex, Sugar Daddies, and Patriarchy

When walking down Kampala highway in Gulu, there is a huge billboard that reads: “Not even Sugar Daddies can stop her!” Below that are the words: Brave, Focused, Victorious. And then below those words is the phrase: Cross Generational Sex stops with you. Then you see a head shot of a young girl smiling at the camera with the words “Go Getter” on her shirt. On the flip side of the billboard there is a picture of an older middle-aged man and next to him a message in Luo (the local language) that first addresses the girl and asks, “Can you live without a man who is older than you?” Then below that it addresses the man on the billboard and asks, “Can you sleep with a girl who is as young as your daughter?”

At other various locations on the road we see another series of smaller billboards that run together in sequence, one after the other (there’s three all together) that tells a similar story. The first sign shows a picture of a young girl accepting gifts from an older man. The second sign shows the girl alone, pregnant, and forlorn. The last sign shows the pregnant girl speaking to an older woman and the police, and next to them we see the older man being taken away in handcuffs. Even though the signs are in Luo, the message reads clearly through the pictures and is along a similar vein as the billboard about cross generation sex: Don’t accept small gifts from older men (“con men” as they call them here), who more than often expect “something for something.” In fact, defilement (as they call it here) – or men having sex with minors -- is the number one crime here in Uganda.

There’s a comic book that circulates, which is sponsored by USAID that attempts to educate the young people here in Uganda about the problems around sex. As I read through the pages, my mouth was open in disbelief at how every single page of that comic book addressed another social ill, another issue around sex being misused and degraded, as a means to control and manipulate women (and men alike) due to strong patriarchal values and lack of education.

The comic book tries to dispel the many inaccurate, yet ignorant beliefs about sex in the community as well as encourage gender equality and respect between men and women. In the comic book, we see a variety of characters – Robert, who is being pressured by his friends to have sex to prove he is a “real man.” Robert sleeps with a girl, who tells him she is pregnant and he angrily responds to her, “I’m not stupid! Virgins can’t get pregnant. I wasn’t born yesterday!” (Really, Robert, are you sure?) Then we see, Steve whose mother is trying to set him up with a nice girl from the village, but he actually has a Sugar Momma (exploitation can go both ways), an older woman whom he has sex with, but who gives him money and ultimately controls his behavior. Steve falls in love with the girl from the village, but upon this knowledge, the Sugar Momma in a fit of jealousy, tells him that she is HIV positive.

Another subplot deals with a group of school girls putting on a drama called “Something for Something” to raise awareness about con men deceiving young girls by buying them small gifts (“something”) in exchange for sex (“something”) and then leaving them as they drop out of school due to stigmatization and unplanned pregnancies. In the comic, the first recital of the drama receives praise and support from the local community. An older man (you see where this is going) approaches the group’s leader and said he was so impressed with the play that he’d like to sponsor it in order for the girls to travel and perform at other schools. The head of the drama group meets with the business man in his office to discuss the sponsorship. He writes her a check and then asks her, “Now what can you do for me?” Angered and disgusted by his behavior, she yells at him and storms out of the office.

Page after page, the drama goes on, but it is not fictional – it is a representation of reality in Uganda.

What is going on here in Africa???

The reality of the corruption of sex and its use to manipulate women, thus destroying their lives, hit home during our community assessment meetings. At every community meeting, we ask the community: What are the reasons for the decline of young girls in school?

The community usually lists the following things:

• Cultural influences. Families do not have money to send girls to school, plus they feel like sending them to school would be wasteful.
• Girls are married off too young due to traditional cultural norms because they are seen as a source of financial gain for the family.
• Con men pursue young girls, which result in unplanned pregnancies.
• Due to the war and congestion in the camps, communities experienced serious poverty and famine. In order to get out of poverty and to feed themselves and their families, girls exchanged sex for food and other small gifts from con men.
• Girls are overworked and have too many responsibilities, and therefore, cannot concentrate on their studies.
  
  

At one particular community meeting, a woman answered that young girls are not continuing their education because con men are defiling girls, and simultaneously I witnessed four or five women put their heads in their hands at the exact same time as if that answer was too much to hear because it was all too true.

Another truth is that gender inequality and the exploitation of women are not isolated to Uganda or Africa. In the Philippines, we see women attempting to avoid poverty through sex tourism and families selling their girls into prostitution. In Nepal, women remain silent about domestic violence and rape within marriage. In Egypt, patriarchy manifests itself in polygamy, female circumcision, and strong cultural and misinterpreted religious values about women’s bodies. (In fact, Egypt has one of the highest rates in female circumcision.) In Ecuador, the problems are domestic violence; husbands cheating on their wives and having children outside of wedlock. My host brother, Manuel, told me that in one of his classes in college, the teacher asked: How many people’s parents were still together? He was the only one out of 40 people who raised their hand. Teenage pregnancy is also a problem; girls 12, 13, 14 are having children.

In Egypt, I saw women in Siwa wearing full blue-colored burqas that covered their entire bodies with only mesh holes for them to see out of as they walked the streets. Their freedom of movement was limited to the accompaniment of a male relative, and they moved through the dusty streets like blue wraiths. (When I saw them I wondered what beautiful women were hidden under there, what their stories were, and how they saw their faith and Allah). The attire of the women from Saudi Arabia was quite different: sleek silky black full length, long sleeved dresses with matching hijab that fully covered their hair and faces. The only opening in their outfit was eye slits, and their eyes, outlined with heavy eyeliner, pierced through their coverings. Unlike their Siwan sisters, whose burqas resembled more of a worn bed sheet, the garb of the Saudi Arabian Muslim women reflected riches (perhaps from oil?), and sometimes I would see a studded-jeweled design on the back of their black gowns. Once, I saw a woman with a design in a shape of a scorpion. I wonder: How is the traditional Islamic belief of modesty represented in that?

But veiling goes beyond simple modesty, and from what I know, women are suppose to veil because showing their hair (a sign of beauty) or any skin would arouse men’s sexual interest. A woman does not want to instigate this type of inappropriate behavior in men other than her husband, and therefore, she must not show herself to strangers. What kind of society is a society in which men need to be kept in check like that?! If men go wild at the sight of a woman’s hair or flesh, then we really need to reconsider why men, with apparently so little self control, are the ones leading our nations.

Again, I have to point out the obvious, that we see religious values (often due to misinterpreted texts or corrupt religious leaders) reverberating in oppressive cultural practices. After the Women in Islam class I took in college, I learned that although Muhammad had many wives, he turned to them (especially his youngest wife, Aisha) for guidance and counsel regarding political matters. I recall that there is one line in the Hadith that refers to Muhammad shifting a curtain (or a veil) so another man would not lay eyes on one of his wives. How this one line got misinterpreted to lead to centuries of covering up women is something that I still need to personally investigate, but the power of religion to distort and oppress – especially when it can favor one gender controlling the other – is displayed in this very example.

Religion plays its role in the Philippines where women turn to unsafe herbal remedies to abort unwanted pregnancies. Women used these methods because the Catholic Church promotes “natural family planning” and does not condone birth control like condoms and other contraceptives. As a result, women use alternative and unsafe methods, and the population of the Philippines is burgeoning out of control and seriously contributing to the problem of poverty.

But what of women here in Africa?

I have already gotten into some heated debates with our hosts here about women’s roles within the house and in society. Although Dr. Beatrice (our host) has more education than her husband, she even agrees that women have to be subservient to their husbands. Her response baffles me to some extent; she claims higher education than her husband, and not that that matters, but she says nothing when he argues with me, “I only cook when she is sick. Her job is to cook and clean because she is the wife.” I am trying to understand their perspective, as I know they are coming from a society that still adheres to the practice of bride prices – men give a “dowry” (or “buy”) their wives from the woman’s family. They also cite examples of the disaster that they witnessed already happen when women obtain power, especially in political office. They told me that one prominent woman in office destroyed her family when she was promoted and then had a higher job status than her husband. She started sleeping around, drinking and partying, and neglecting her traditional duties of wife and mother. Dr. B and Mr. C said that when women gain power or feel “liberated” this power dynamic destroys the family structure. Women begin to feel entitled to the same things their husbands were entitled to (i.e. multiple sex partners, a career, not being responsible for domestic chores, etc. – we really need to address these perceived roles!). In order for a family to stay cohesive and successful, they say there has to be someone in charge, someone dominant, and in Africa (as is the story mostly everywhere else in the world) it is the man.

During our community meetings, women are vocal that the challenges to having a healthy family stem from men neglecting their roles and responsibilities and drinking the family’s money away. Domestic violence is an issue, and women claim that men will divorce them if there is not enough food to eat in the house. Men have multiple sex partners outside of marriage bringing back HIV and other STDs to their wives. A recent article in the newspaper here read: “Highest rate of HIV is Spread Amongst Married Couples.”How f'ed up is that?

It is very difficult for me not to blame men for the burden women carry, not just here in Uganda, but the world over. As a social worker, my lens is able to see environmental factors at work here in Northern Uganda: poverty, war, joblessness in the IDP camps all contribute to men’s inability to provide for their families – and when you cannot fill your main role and purpose (or what you think is your main role) that leads to disempowerment, hopelessness, and depression. Thus, people turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism and leading to the high incidence of alcoholism here. (Every morning I buy eggs from the little shop below our apartment, and the men have already started drinking). But tell me, why are men still running the show when many of them are shirking their duties? Women now not only have to run the family, they are responsible for generating income, leaving women overworked and over burdened.

As with any work we wish to do, we have to first think about our own value system. Being self-aware of the values we live by is crucial because these values are the foundation from which we conduct our daily affairs – in business and in our personal lives – whether we are conscious of this or not. And if we wish to work towards a goal, to have a vision of change, then we need to be aware of what values, beliefs, and ideas within us are going to help us get there or be a detriment to the cause. This trip has made me hyper aware that I need to do this self-analysis and critical thinking about my own views on women’s equality and where I see women’s rights 10, 20, 30 years down the line. I’m being confronted with the questions: What really is my vision and ultimately, what will my role be in creating this reality?

During the debates about women roles I had with our hosts here, I found myself biting my tongue and toning down my own views on women’s roles and equality. In my other travels, I have lackadaisically spoken about my own opinions and thoughts about marriage from a feminist and personal perspective. I usually say, “I value my independence, freedom, education and career before marriage or any type of partnership. I don’t know if I’ll get married because I don’t believe in the institution (women being owned by men). And I don’t think I’ll have children because I want a career that allows me to travel, and the “soccer mom” life strikes me as extremely oppressive, limiting, and unappealing.” Blah blah blah. My list rattles on, and I think this little schpeal of mine has been my recorded speech since high school, with additional addendums (and sparks of anger) as I progressed through various Women and Gender classes in college and experienced a variety of heterosexual relationships (all of which, in my efforts to retain my identity, individuality, and independence has usually threatened our relationship, or dare I say, even de-masculated my male partner). Usually when I state my views to people in other countries (and in the States) I get raised eyebrows, women clicking their tongues at me in disbelief and disappointment, and a few women saying I can have those beliefs because I am from the United States and women don’t experience the same oppression there than in other countries.

Yet, that is another myth, I tell them, because inequality and oppression are manifested in different ways in the States. Women in the US still suffer from discrimination in the workplace, for example. I worked on numerous cases at my old job as a paralegal at an employee rights law firm where women lost their jobs because they were pregnant or women who were working on Wall Street were excluded from opportunities to advance their careers because of the “Boys Club” atmosphere, thus hitting the glass ceiling. Women electricians are experiencing modern day discrimination equal to what the women experienced in the movie, “North Country,” a true story of women being ruthlessly discriminated against working in the mines. What about the more subtle forms of oppression that the majority of us don’t consider? For example, the music industry or the media. The music video that first comes to my mind is the recent Justin Timberlake and Ciara “Love, Sex, and Magic.” In this video we see Ciara wearing practically nothing, clothed in an animal print leotard with something around her neck that looks like a leash. In one scene, Justin is holding on to her “leash” like an animal and then he proceeds to lick her face (what is up with that!?). Ciara – dressed in animal print with a collar – symbolically (and obviously) puts her in an animal-like, dominated position in the video by Justin. And to top it all off – Justin is a white man and Ciara is a black woman. Wow. Historically, the white slave master had leashes around his slaves. Wow. So Justin and Ciara just made a present music video condoning this type of scene and behavior – not knowing that their lyrics and their actions in this video reflect the history of the oppression of women and black people. It not only reflects this history, it condones, and therefore continues to promote the exploitation and domination of women by men and white people over people of color. And to top it all off again – the music video implies that all this is just… sexy. Yeah. Sexy. Oppression and exploitation… sexy? Really? But nobody really talks about all the imagery and lyrics in music and the media because our social climate and the dominate framework for how we think about things is that sex sells. So, with that lens, Justin and Ciara are just “doing their thing” and being “sexy.” But this is just one of the countless examples of music and music videos using lyrics and sexuality to promote the objectification and degradation of women’s bodies. We are not aware that music, especially, is changing the way young people think about their bodies, sex, and relations between the genders.

So what does that mean for women in the West? I think it means that we can’t be passive and think we’ve achieved liberation if this is the social climate we are working with!

I am still trying to think critically about the vision I see for women in the future and I am realizing I have to reform my vision by re-analyzing how I maneuver through my own life. I have over valued independence, self-sufficiency, aggressiveness, ambition, and being in control – all masculine traits. While these values have served me in different ways, I recognize that I also disapprove of traditionally feminine qualities: nurturing, passivity, flexibility.. etc. These characteristics are the usually undervalued in society, as we admire and esteem traits that reflect ambition and can get you “to the top.” Women are currently reflecting those traits and achieving great success. Not only do we have women CEO’s, who command corporations with fierceness, but they are doing all that on top of raising children and being wives. So that’s a good thing, right? We have women who are now multi-faceted and in fact, I argue, more apt and capable than men because they are fulfilling their roles in addition to the roles men traditionally fill – being bread winners. But what about those traditional feminine characteristics? These characteristics are looked down upon, tossed aside, and undervalued in our society. We see society’s opinion of feminine values reflected in our perceptions of women’s work, for example. When women leave their jobs to take care of new born babies, they get little maternity leave and are often not hired back to their job. Keeping house and child raising – traditional female roles – are not celebrated. In fact, all of those positions are unpaid for a wife, and are low paid jobs in general. We do not value women’s work. Therefore, there is little respect the feminine.

Taking a step back, I am comparing the plight of people of color to the women’s movement and seeing some parallels. Are women attempting to switch roles with the oppressor? In order to compensate for the lack of women’s rights throughout history, are women taking on masculine characteristics in order to establish power that has been denied to them for so long? Are women now just over compensating to gain lost ground? And if so, then if women’s liberation is instead taking on the form of copying oppressive male characteristics in order for women to gain equal rights, and if that is the lens I am looking at this movement, then I really need to ask myself: Is that the trajectory of this mission? What is healthy for the development of all peoples and all genders? What really is equality?

Equality is determining that two different things have equal value. However, the current global social climate considers traditionally “male” traits to be better than “female” traits. Therefore, we need to elevate women’s work and women’s roles so that traditionally female jobs such as child-rearing, teachers, and nurses have just as much value as traditionally male jobs. But it goes beyond elevating women’s jobs or paying women equal salaries. It ultimately begins with our own personal views and reforming the very way we think about what is important not just for success – but for healthy growth, development, and real progress in society.

I envision a society in which the feminine is just as valued as the masculine – two different sides to the same coin – both having the same value. In Eastern Religions, we see Yin and Yang. Yin represents the female: passive, yielding, dark, cool, etc. Yang, the male: active, aggressive, light, hot, etc. Yet, one can only exist because the other one exists; there is only day because there is night, there is only hot because there is cold. The mountains (yang) only exist because of the valleys (yin) that surrounds it. One cannot exist without the other; both equally depend on each other. In Kundalini Yoga, the yogi (through yoga and meditation) tries to raise their feminine energy (represented by the Hindu goddess Shakti) located at the base of the spine to meet masculine energy (represented by the Hindu god Shiva) in order to bring the practitioner into Nirvana. Both male and female energy are needed for this ultimate spiritual transformation and are equally significant in their roles in this process. Can we shape the roles of men and women with this lens? Instead of seeing one set of gendered traits superior to another, can we see masculine and feminine in its pure form – two complimentary energies, sacred and significant in their own right and power, and absolutely necessary to wholeness, balance, and healthy transformation? In Chinese Medicine, when a person’s own internal combination of yin and yang is unbalanced, when one tries to overpower or dominate the other within the physical body, the body’s equilibrium is disrupted and disease forms. In society, perhaps it’s the same way – too much yang forms patriarchy, thus resulting in a sick society.

So how can this vision manifest itself in our present day reality? First, we have to give equal opportunities to children from birth to play with both dolls and trucks (gendered toys). We need to teach our children that however they express themselves is healthy – if a girl wants to play in the dirt, let her; if a boy wants to cry, let him. We tell our boys at such a young age how to “be men” by scolding them when they cry because “real men don’t cry.”Being human means experiencing and expressing the full range of human emotions, and by denying boys and men from expressing anything but anger and aggression, we are ultimately denying our men from being full, well-rounded, fully integrated human beings. By telling our young girls that they shouldn’t get dirty outside and should be playing house or discouraging them from participating in athletics, we are also denying our girls a way for them to know their bodies in an empowering way and giving them the message that boys are allowed to do some things they are not. These are the messages we need to tell our children as they grow in order for them to respect themselves as well as each other.

In addition, we need to lead by example. Within our own selves, we need to strike a balance between our own masculine and feminine traits – equally embracing both the yin and the yang within ourselves even if we have more of one than the other. We need to be able to express ourselves in the ways that make us happy and whole people, to our full potential, regardless if I am female and independent or male and nurturing. In our own relationships, I would like to see a society where child-raising and income generation are genderless roles. Whichever partner can fulfill those roles the best then does those roles without controlling or oppressing the other partner. And if by chance, the one partner who was raising the children now wants to generate income, the roles can be switched without one partner feeling like they no longer have a purpose or identity. Jobs and roles within and outside the house are interchangeably filled by both partners. Decision-making is an active and equal process of collaboration. There is no “head of the household” because the partnership and power is shared. Giving birth and child-raising is elevated to its actual position as one of the highest and sacred positions in society. Mothers are ultimately sheltering, training, and grooming the future of the human race, the next generation of people – how has society forgotten what an important (if not the MOST important) role that is in general? Because the next generation, depending on how we raise them, will ultimately determine the future of the planet – probably even more so than the leaders of our nations. With that perspective and those responsibilities, women should be Queens in every household and paid more than the President himself.

When this reality starts to manifest, there won’t be a need for feminism because there won’t be any patriarchy. I won’t have to” find” feminism here – or in any developing or developed country because women would not be subjected to (or active participants in) the oppressive realities promoted by patriarchical institutions. And when that day comes, perhaps I won’t look (and feel) so much of a mad woman in search of a reality that could very well exist not only if men thought critically about their privilege and their roles, but if women believed in and were made aware of their own power as women.