Women, cleaning and cooking—Labor of love or slavery?

This past week has been a very busy one for Yaanom after Ace Anan Ankomah, renowned Ghanaian lawyer wrote his controversial “tips” for a happy marriage”, generating heated debates all across the Yaanomdom.

In his third tip, he stated, “I am quite old-fashioned. A man must be a husband and father. A woman has her role as wife and mother. We can’t swap roles. We are equal but different. A man must PROVIDE, work like a bull and brute, and PROVIDE some more. “.

He went on to add, “A woman, even when she works (and every woman should work, if she can) should provide only if she wants to. But she is in charge of everything else that has to do with the home. Yes, it is her kitchen, not mine. That’s why she chose everything in there…”

By this time Yaanom were already up screaming “DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY!!!!”, ready to behead the poor man for daring to mention “females” and “kitchen” in the same sentence. But the straw that broke Yaanom’s back was when he went further to say…

“I expect dinner when I get home, and meals when I’m home. You don’t have to cook it. You don’t have to serve it. Just make sure the system I have provided for produces and delivers the food. In the same vein, I don’t wash, clean, sweep, vacuum, dust or do any housework. I am “DADDY”…”.It was at this point that Yaanom-In-Chief, a certain Dela Goldheart, an attention seeker who should be the Face of Yaanom for her misguided views on feminism decided to jump into the conversation and accuse Mr. Ankomah of treating his better half like a slave because he expects her to cook for him. This led to a whole debate about gender roles in marriage.

It was all much ado about nothing if you ask me. First of all, no two marriages are the same. The system that keeps one marriage strong will collapse another. So if Mr. Ankomah and his wife have decided that the kitchen is hers to man (pun intended), how does that constitute slavery?

Some women love to cook for their men. Others don’t. The fact that a woman loves her husband enough to want to keep him well-fed all the time does not make her a slave, neither does it make her any less of a feminist. Yes, women have been “programmed” to cook, clean, take care of others, etc. But what is so wrong with that?

Of course, men need to learn these things too for basic survival. If as a man you can’t cook to save your life and pick up after yourself, are you a man at all? Most men can actually do these things, but it is simply not in their nature.

Yaanom are really not helping the cause of feminism by making it seem as if women doing house chores and taking care of their men and children is a sign of slavery or some other such misguided trajectory. Women are nurturing by nature. Trying to take that away from them does nothing to further the cause of feminism.

If you see feeding those you love and taking care of them as “slavery”, it tells a lot about you as a person and how you were brought up. A real woman will cook for her man and be proud of it. That doesn’t reduce her worth in any way.

Yaanom can go about vilifying any other woman for taking care of her house, but they should make sure they don’t come crying later when their cohorts the Slay Queens snatch their men from them. Then they will form all sorts of faux “women-empowerment” groups to disturb our ears with nonsense.

Continue doing “I’m a feminist so I don’t cook”. One “nyati-nyati” girl will come and cook, clean, scrub your man’s balls and give him some killer doggy on your own kitchen stool.