I'm not a feminist but an independent woman'

As usual actress Lydia Forson has released a piece with addresses her take on how society stereotypes unmarried women.

Her piece comes at a time ace broadcaster, Gifty Anti’s got married to Nana Ansa Kwao of the Multimedia Group.

Read Lydia’s piece below:

INDEPENDENT WOMEN - The Misconception

I love the interesting comments I get on things I post. Mostly because it exposes the cracks in the way we think in this country and our level of ignorance. To be honest, it’s sad actually because I wonder how some of these people go through life thinking the way they do. But it always explains a lot of what’s wrong with this country and why we’ll probably never attain the level of development we want.We can’t develop if our minds are still in cages.

I posted this artwork on Instagram this morning, and I need to state that this was designed by CREO CONCEPTS a group of young men whose designs and animation have gone viral.

They tagged me in this post a while back and I only decided this morning to put it up. Again I need you to understand that these are young men, who I’ve known for a while and are nothing like the average young men in Ghana. They are smart ambitious and extremely creative, so this coming from them made me really proud.

The comments on my page got me thinking about the assumption that being an independent woman automatically to most means, single, never been married, no children and may probably never want to be with a man.

I’ve always maintained that I’m not a feminist, because like “independent women” it’s always misconceived that feminist again are single, unmarried, and hate men. Any woman that takes a stand and doesn’t conform to societies rules of life is automatically a bitter single woman. And that’s why I refuse to allow people put me in that bubble. But perhaps I have fed into this stereotype myself and it is the reason why I dislike the word so much. The fear that immediately I label myself a feminist I automatically join the pool of women who are constantly against anything traditional.

So sadly in as much as I’ve fought against this misconception, by shying away from it I’ve actually without realizing it started to believe it and is probably why I dissociate myself from it.

However, if I were to give myself a label it would probably be an ‘EQUALIST’ meaning I’m in the fight for all humans to be treated with respect and given equal rights. Words like feminist, chauvinist and all other labels etc wouldn’t exist if people were treated equally.

Now about ‘independent women’; being an independent woman to me doesn’t mean I don’t want a man, but that a man isn’t the center of my existence, a man doesn’t define who I am. It means I recognize that I have a destiny and goals that God has set for me, and these goals may or may not include a man. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in marriage or companionship, but that I respect that the institution is sacred and should be treated as such. And I know men will come at you with” you’re independent so it means you don’t want a man to take care of you”.

Far from it, I’m actually quite traditional and recognize a man’s role in a relationship. I expect my man to step up to the plate and be the man in our relationship. Being independent just means that I can live without all of that, but choose not to, it means I’m more than who I date or marry, but that they’re just a part of my story.

Sadly our society and the world continue to beat down any woman who even attempts to have an ambition outside of marriage or relationships.

A man isn’t and shouldn’t be your destiny, he should be your partner and together you can help each other achieve your goals and build an empire. What’s the point in educating women if it’s only to tell them that they’re not supposed to want anything more out of life, or they shouldn’t dare to dream?

Why empower women only to tell them to not be more than the men they’re with, or constantly feel like the more they achieve the harder it will be for them to find a man.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said it best, she said:

“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.”

A real man won’t be threatened by his woman’s achievements; neither will he think her less of a woman for wanting to be more than a wife and a mother. A real man will recognize the gem in the woman he’s with and realize that instead of trying to beat her down he should lift her up.

Perhaps when they said “behind a successful man is a woman” they didn’t mean women were hiding behind the men, but that they were the driving force behind their men’s success.

So don't let the world change you into something you’re not, or force you to change your dreams in the fear that having dreams automatically means living a lonely life.

Marriage is great, but being happy in marriage is the greatest.

So focus on being happy and the rest will fall into place. Don’t feed into the assumption that wanting more out of life means you won’t get a man.

You can have it all.

#missforson