International Women's Day

Today is international women’s day and this year I’ve never been more acutely aware of the world’s need to celebrate women and promote women’s rights.

Conversations that I’ve had in the past month in no particular chronological order (all participants renamed to John and all conversations translated into English, poorly):

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John: So Bovard, I hear in America that there are some men who can’t sleep unless they have had sex.

Me: I haven’t heard that. I think there are some people who need to have sex very often, but I don’t know if they need it to sleep, and they might not be able to have sex every day.

John: What do you mean they can’t have sex every day? Don’t they have girlfriends?

Me: Yeah, but sometimes their girlfriend might not want to have sex.

John: What!? How is that possible? Here the girls always have sex with us if we want to.

John 2: Oh man that would be terrible. How do you live like that?

Me: Well sometimes they want to do something else or they don’t want to, maybe they are too tired from working.

John: Are you serious? Why would you want a girlfriend like that?

Me: Like what?

John: One that you can’t have sex with whenever you want.

Me: Well having a girlfriend isn’t just about having sex.

John: You Americans are odd.

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Me: So you are telling me that you have girlfriends, but you don’t want to be seen in public with them?

John: Yeah.

Me: So what do you do together?

John: Well usually they come over and they sweep my house, do my laundry and cook for me and then we have sex.

Me: But you don’t ever want to be seen in public with them?

John: Of course not! If we were ever seen in public they might start thinking that I would want to marry them or something. It would be too complicated. I like it the way it is.

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Me: But you guys are glad that the number of excisions (read: female genital mutilations) has started to decrease, right?

John: No! Everything was fine until you white people came and started telling us that it wasn’t right to do that.

Me: What? So you think excision is a good thing?

John: Let’s just say that if I were to become king tomorrow I would clip all women in Burkina Faso.

Me: Why? Are you serious? You know that would kill a lot of people right? Why would you want to do something like that?

John: Well take pornography, for example. Have you ever seen pornography with a girl that is clipped?

Me: Have you ever seen a guy with no balls in pornography? Do you want me to cut off your balls?

John: Sure go ahead.

Me: Alright. (Pull out my key ring). Which key do you want me to use?

John: Laughs

Me: But that’s your choice. Why force this on hundreds of women and only women?

John2: It’s not just women that are circumcised, men are too!

Me: But that’s not the same, men can still enjoy sex after being circumcised. And there are much lower risks associated with men being circumcised and health benefits. There is no reason to circumcise women.

John: But that is a reason why we want to do it! It calms them down.

Me: It calms them down? So you want all women to be docile?

John: Yes

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I find that as I discover that more and more men in Toma have attitudes similar to those held in the conversations above, the less chance I think I have at finding a male friend whose attitudes toward women I respect. I try the best I can to put it in perspective and imagine myself talking to male Americans in the 19th century. I imagine that a century and a half will bring change similar to that seen in the US. I hope that it doesn't take that long.

In any case, happy International Women’s Day! Here’s to all the women around the world and to all that they do to make it a better place to live in.