Chinyere Fred-Adegbulugbe
By now we should all be tired of this cooking debate. We should have all been war-weary from all the previous battles over this same issue of whether a woman should be a wife and a cook, a wife and not a cook, or just a cook.
But no, we can’t be. How can we when the energy is ever full and even bubbling over and so little else to do with our time? So, once in a year or so, we all march out in full armor to defend our rights as women.
The most amusing aspect of this perennial debate is that it only takes so little to rile us up and the next minute, we are all foaming in the mouths, defending nothingness.
But in doing so, we more or less forget the famous Winston Churchill parable of not wasting valuable time, throwing stones at every dog that barks at you through your path in life or you’ll be derailed.
In essence, I’m saying that the woman has such a powerful and discerning voice that it’s indeed tragic that she would decide to deploy it to argue about cooking.
We waste precious moments of our earth life, majoring on minors and ranting over inanities.
While it’s become fashionable and rightly to always fight leaders over their utterances, there should also be the need to abstain from crying more than the bereaved.
We must learn to live and let live and also allow people grow at their pace, for as long as they’re not harming others.
On Monday Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), had in a tweet, advised his ‘sons’ not to marry ladies who can’t cook and do house chores.
He had tweeted, “My sons, don’t marry a lady who can’t cook. She needs to know how to do chores and cook because you can’t afford to be eating out all the time,”
Unless Pastor Adeboye is your biological father or you are one of those who have proudly adopted him as your father, what exactly is your problem with the advice he has decided to share with his ‘sons’
Since then all hell has been let loose.
But to what end?
Pastor Enoch Adeboye was very specific about the target of his words of advice. In case some of missed it, he addressed them as his ‘sons’.
And so, unless Pastor Adeboye is your biological father or you are one of those who have proudly adopted him as your father, what exactly is your problem with the advice he has decided to share with his ‘sons’.
Are you married to one of his ‘sons’ or planning to?
Has any of his ‘sons’ or their wives come to you to complain about any difficulties they face for following their ‘father’s advice or how it’s infringing on their human rights?
Has Pastor Enoch Adeboye ever come to your house to chastise your husband for marrying you even when he knew you couldn’t and can’t still cook?
If your answer is no, why then do you insist on tearing your under garments all over the social media?
I spent a greater part of my earlier years in journalism reporting women’s rights organisations and their activities and I can tell you that these organisations, led by strong and focused women have done more than their bit in fighting gender stereotypes.
However, they also know that for as long as these stereotypes are not forced on others, there’s really no basis for wasting resources fighting them.
That’s probably the reason you might not see this yearly ritual of debate on who cooks for the family prominent in their playbook.
Eventually, the dead will bury their dead.
There are so many issues, graves issues bordering on gross violations of women’s human rights right under our noses all the time to dispense energy on to cook or not to cook.
I mean if you get home and hungry there are so many options out there.
For instance, you can get into the kitchen and cook. You can decide to also eat out, even for the rest of your life and boost the earnings of your local eateries.
There’s also the option of hiring a cook who would always be there to ensure your table is supplied always, as long as you provide the money.
Then, as a last option, you can fast.
Yes, you can quietly pick any of the above and get on with your life.
We can’t continue stomp all over the place like a child with ants in its pants and expect to be taken seriously where substantial issues are concerned
Just think about it deeply enough and tell me again why the advice of a ‘father’ to his ‘sons’ should become a source of this much vexation to your being to warrant flinging insults all over the place.
We can’t continue stomp all over the place like a child with ants in its pants and expect to be taken seriously where substantial issues are concerned.
It’s the same with the usual protestations of professional women whenever they’re asked questions on home management during media interviews.
Most of these women are usually indignant about such questions, asking if their male colleagues also get to be asked similar questions, which they describe as sexist.
But why should a man be asked about pregnancy and childbearing when we all know that it’s the woman that carries the pregnancy and also breastfeeds the baby, to say the least?
I think women should wear those tags with pride and answer those questions with all the grace they can muster.
You know why? It takes super strength to accomplish what many of us women have done over the years and we shouldn’t begin to diminish our greatness by throwing away precious stones at barking dogs.
We should rather gather those stones and get them ready for building a better humanity.
