[Sanaa-]

Empower is a heavily intoned word, which is relatively easy to employ in ones life by means of simple common sense and knowledge through hearing. I have been a strong supporter of womens issues for as long as I can remember. Anything that involves helping women is of great importance to me.

But lets be realistic.

I was reading somewhere about poor women in Kenya being detained in hospitals for not being able to afford the delivery fee of 3,400 Ksh. I’m not sure if that is the actual delivery fee or is an accumulated fee. Now I could discuss how hospitals or communities should go about catering for women who can’t afford that fee and other practical ideas, but I asked myself , for how long are we going to continue solving the symptoms of a great epidemic amongst women in Kenya. If we donate, or establish a fund to help this women pay their delivery fees, then what after that? Will we also donate to feed the children till adult hood.

Why do poor women continue to give birth, and have sex with partners who are unwilling or even unable to help foot the costs of child rearing. What is this sexual appetite that is so great it suffocates any possible use of common sense. Sometimes I get so frustrated with women who refuse to help themselves and continue to ferment in their own problems and then blaming everyother thing but themselves.

Can someone tell me what drives women to

• Continue to live and have sex with partners who are incapable of generating enough income to support them both. These women also exist in a stagnant income level that alone is not even enough to support them both.
  
  
• Continue to live with husbands /partners who continually abuse them and endanger their lives.
  
  
• A cheating spouse. Not only does he cheat but rarely spends more than 3 nights in a week at home and then goes ahead and agrees to have unprotected sex with him and ends up getting pregnant.
  
  
  
• Give birth to 3 or 5 children when its hard enough to feed themselves.

Is sympathy and donations truly the right approach here or solution to these problems? Should these women consider getting a permenent form of birth control like having their tubes tied?

I believe there are some cases where you can't help your situation, these women can be poor in finances but do they have to be mentally impoverished as well, that it is so difficult to know when to have sex and when not to?

[reggie_woic]

education:
i'm 100% sure that the difference between women who undergo these problems and women who don't is education.
and this goes not just for Kenya or Africa, but the whole world.

whatever it is that drives them is beyond me...i'm not hating on them, but one would think
common sense would be enough to prevent these problems..

maybe we need laws against over-having babies (works for china)

[barb]

i studies women studies for over a year and of of all the info i got abt women, this particular subject got to me, i was bothered so much as to why women take alot of crap from men, @ the time my bff had an abusive boyfie and i just couldn't get it as to why she kept going back to him, as i learned i got a better understanding as to why this happens to most women, infact i wrote a thesis on this subject, ill get some more points when i get home and look 4 it, here as some of em

1..FEAR...fear of being alone, its like a taboo esp in our african society to be 36, single and childless, if you are like that then something is automatically wrong withchu so most women settle for just good enough.

2..self blame...they blame themselves for the way their partner turned out, you know 'its all my fault, if i treat himbetter he will be a better man 4 me n the kids' well i say bullsh*t!!!

3.. shame and embarrassment
.
4.. false hope

5..Denial

6..they feel the need to protect their significant other who is a bum!!!

like i said am gonna get more points coz they are a whole bunch of them, and after learning all this i could at least see where they were coming from but seriously i would be lying if i said i fully get it, even independent women are still taking crap from men!!! Take mashada for example, when someone starts a thread stereotyping women, damn the positive responses he/she gets outweighs the negative ones...here is the real kicker women support the barbaric criticism..sad, i know, well i like to believe that women are getting some knowledge of what is expected of them in the society, coz most men will never change, after all you cant strengthen the weak by strengthening the strong, and by this i dont mean that women are weak, i meant it starts with an individual then it grows to the society as a whole....damn i feel like am preaching, am just so passionate abt this subject.

[kiptur]

sanaa the answer to your question is very simple-this women you are talking

about have very narrow choice in life,

no skills to secure well paying jobs,

wanaume responsible wameadimika- this is a fact

so they find it better to stick to any available man irrespective of how financial capable or how responsible the man is.

atleast half a loaf is better than none it's better to have man who can satisfy you in bed but can't satisfy your financial needs rather than having none

[okiedokes]

Barb, you raised some good points there. I studied women's studies too for 2 years and it was quite insightful. Something we have in common.
It's hard to understand it but from what I've seen, before a man gets physically abusive he has abused the woman emotionally, psychologically, mentally. Those aspects are very core to any human. It creates self-doubt, and self-esteem issues. You feel shame, and guilt and most women hide the abuse. It is this very secrecy that encourages the abusive partner to continue. Then comes the financial aspects(or lack thereof), societal pressures, the desire to not fail, denial, regret, etc.

Pastor Wanita Bynum recently divorced her husband who is also a pastor. He was physically abusive to her. So it can affect women from all works of life, and the abusers can be from all works of life too. It is always about controlling the other person and a deep feeling of insecurity about one thing or another.

A woman's life is most at risk when she tries to leave. That's why domestic violence centres suggest making a "safe plan" if you plan to leave so you can make it out alive. But I tell you, you can never quite understand it b/c even the victims don't understand why they stayed in it as long as they did. How they missed warning signs, etc.

PS: @ Barb...will be waiting for more insight from you on this topic! Cheers!!

[salutes]

Originally Posted by Sanaa-

Empower is a heavily intoned word, which is relatively easy to employ in ones life by means of simple common sense and knowledge through hearing. I have been a strong supporter of womens issues for as long as I can remember. Anything that involves helping women is of great importance to me.

But lets be realistic.

I was reading somewhere about poor women in Kenya being detained in hospitals for not being able to afford the delivery fee of 3,400 Ksh. I’m not sure if that is the actual delivery fee or is an accumulated fee. Now I could discuss how hospitals or communities should go about catering for women who can’t afford that fee and other practical ideas, but I asked myself , for how long are we going to continue solving the symptoms of a great epidemic amongst women in Kenya. If we donate, or establish a fund to help this women pay their delivery fees, then what after that? Will we also donate to feed the children till adult hood.

Why do poor women continue to give birth, and have sex with partners who are unwilling or even unable to help foot the costs of child rearing. What is this sexual appetite that is so great it suffocates any possible use of common sense. Sometimes I get so frustrated with women who refuse to help themselves and continue to ferment in their own problems and then blaming everyother thing but themselves.
Can someone tell me what drives women to

• Continue to live and have sex with partners who are incapable of generating enough income to support them both. These women also exist in a stagnant income level that alone is not even enough to support them both.
  
  
• Continue to live with husbands /partners who continually abuse them and endanger their lives.
  
  
• A cheating spouse. Not only does he cheat but rarely spends more than 3 nights in a week at home and then goes ahead and agrees to have unprotected sex with him and ends up getting pregnant.
  
  
  
• Give birth to 3 or 5 children when its hard enough to feed themselves.

Is sympathy and donations truly the right approach here or solution to these problems? Should these women consider getting a permenent form of birth control like having their tubes tied?

I believe there are some cases where you can't help your situation, these women can be poor in finances but do they have to be mentally impoverished as well, that it is so difficult to know when to have sex and when not to?

Surely, women have never learnt !!!!! A man who can effortlessly give a woman an orgasm a day can never be let go(hata kama hana chapaa, an orgasm does not come easy remember ), it is tooo sweeeet to dinyana with tears on your face, the moans from a woman who is really enjoying the mdinyano are sometimes too violent. For most women, how a man performs in bed is what they base the decision on whether to pack up and go or whether to stay (sad but very true) These women fail to realise that Sexual gratification is wholesome, not just about inserting baba kanush into your pundesh for the longest time imaginable.

Having children......Now that is in most cases coincidental. People do not engage in sex to have kids................pliz, they dinyana to enjoy and to relieve themselves of the extra baggage in the storage facility!!! Duh, kwani you do not know????? Kids are the extra charge that sometimes come along. In case you do not know, most children born in Sub saharan africa (maybe including you) were never planned for, and the CD did not malfunction either, people like it mundu khu mundu, and one of the zillion lethal shots develops into a baby.

Since you ask questions as if umerudi from Venus jana, let me tell you here that in the third world, entertainment is still a luxury, for most folk, the only time when real entertainment occurs is at night and between the sheets or in the bushes for the rural folk.

There now, hope that I have enlightened you

[Sanaa-]

In other words it's more of a psychological issue than lack of education. The worst part about it is that it's the children involved in such relationships who suffer the most (besides the women) and then they have to fight these warped ideas of what really is right or wrong as they grow up.

You find that some of these women are also ardent church goers, sometimes I can't rationalise the connection with christianity and such insane choices.

[msema ukweli Kabisa]

Originally Posted by salutes

Surely, women have never learnt !!!!! A man who can effortlessly give a woman an orgasm a day can never be let go(hata kama hana chapaa, an orgasm does not come easy remember ), it is tooo sweeeet to dinyana with tears on your face, the moans from a woman who is really enjoying the mdinyano are sometimes too violent. For most women, how a man performs in bed is what they base the decision on whether to pack up and go or whether to stay (sad but very true) These women fail to realise that Sexual gratification is wholesome, not just about inserting baba kanush into your pundesh for the longest time imaginable.

Having children......Now that is in most cases coincidental. People do not engage in sex to have kids................pliz, they dinyana to enjoy and to relieve themselves of the extra baggage in the storage facility!!! Duh, kwani you do not know????? Kids are the extra charge that sometimes come along. In case you do not know, most children born in Sub saharan africa (maybe including you) were never planned for, and the CD did not malfunction either, people like it mundu khu mundu, and one of the zillion lethal shots develops into a baby.

Since you ask questions as if umerudi from Venus jana, let me tell you here that in the third world, entertainment is still a luxury, for most folk, the only time when real entertainment occurs is at night and between the sheets or in the bushes for the rural folk.

There now, hope that I have enlightened you

lots of substantive discussion till this retard posted,

[Real Talk]

I believe these questions arise due to a prevailing stigma in discussing any type of "women's empowerment" in third-world countries(mostly rural areas), especially for those who are not aware of their options( education).......

[Sanaa-]

Originally Posted by Real Talk

I believe these questions arise due to a prevailing stigma in discussing any type of "women's empowerment" in third-world countries(mostly rural areas), especially for those who are not aware of their options( education).......

Not having options such as education is a good excuse but not enough. I know a woman who was illiterate, could only count and write her own name. Yet she left her abusive husband, fled with the kids and now two of them are in ivy league schools. Very inspiring story. Choice comes from the abundance of mental wealth given to all of us by God, and just by utilising the choice to live and not to slowly kill your self and your children, then you become empowered.