Francisca Oteng-Mensah, Kwabre East Constituency MP
Ghana’s youngest legislator, Francisca Oteng Mensah has said that to become a housewife must be a matter of choice for any woman and not on compulsion as individual women have their own talents and passions to pursue, and therefore must not be subjects of somebody else’s preferences.
The Member of Parliament for the Kwabre East Constituency, who granted an exclusive interview with Angel TV monitored by MyNewsGh.com, advised women in Ghana to strive at identifying their potentials and passions and work toward making an independent living, rather than succumbing to the dictates of other people to force them to become housewives.
Though not condemning women who have chosen to be housewives, she said others who feel they can do other jobs in addition to tending to their homes must not be impeded in any way.
“Don’t allow anybody to compel you to be a housewife because you might have passion for something else; you might have a God-given gift; maybe you want to be a fashion designer, you want to own a shop or go into entrepreneurship; but if you also want to be a housewife that’s fine”, she said.
“Nobody must be allowed to confine you to the house to cook when maybe you have the strength to manage the two; you have to sit down to assess yourself to find the middle point for your career and the upbringing of your children, because it would be too late to start any meaningful venture when you are in your sixties; by that time, you may have wasted precious time and talent”, the twenty five year old MP said.
She further advised women who find themselves in abusive relationships and subjected to various forms of domestic abuse to speak up and seek help from the relevant authorities.
She praised Ghanaian women on the event of Mothers’ Day and credited her political success to the tremendous help he got from some women in her constituency when she decided to contest the seat against four strong men who had far higher academic and political credentials than her.
