BLOG: The huge misconception that is ‘Janet Mbuguatization’ of women
I need to start by saying this article has nothing to do with Janet Mbugua, the renowned media personality, but the women who aspire to become like her.
She has built a name for herself in this town based on hard work and talent. Additionally, she also shares aspects of her personal life with the public via social media, portraying a picture of a perfect life with her perfect successful husband and very cute child.
What women in Nairobi have tragically failed to understand is that she has worked very hard for everything that her life is.
I choose to believe she is assertive when it comes to her professional life when she needs to be, but when she gets home she is submissive to her husband.
This is where Nairobi women go wrong, this huge misconception that being submissive to your man means being his slave.
Being submissive is important to the success of our relationships because that is what has kept our mothers married to our fathers.
SUBMISSION
To lead and to submit may be different but this does not mean that one is inferior to the other.
As my mother always says, “the man must be worthy of your submission.”
If you want to look at it in terms of power distribution within the household, it makes women even more powerful than the man.
Can you imagine your father or your man coming home to cook himself a meal after a long day at the office? Who really needs who?
This fallacy was witnessed by the huge uproar on social media and uptown bars last week about Lisa Gaitho ‘washing her man’.
The reasons she gave for doing it, getting to live a very elaborate lifestyle etc. notwithstanding, I honestly believe there is nothing wrong with her washing her man if this is how she submits to him.
CAREGIVERS
There is no set formula on how it should be done and it can change from relationship to relationship.
Growing up, whenever my father needed to eat, if myself or one of my sisters could not get him a dish with water, a towel and soap for washing his hands, my mother would do it without question; that is her way of submitting.
Just because we are go-getters in the boardroom does not mean we don’t have to be caregivers in the home.
Yes, there have been huge gains for women over the last 20 years.
Yes, this should be celebrated. But as women who have changed and are now more empowered we must remember that our men in the most basic sense, haven’t.
If we strive to have successful and picturesque marriages such as Janet Mbugua we must be willing to take our men as they are.