Nomalanga: South African President, Zuma Offends Women Saying It’s Not Okay to be Single, Women Need Children to Train Them to be Women
Mail & Gaurdian, a South African publication, is reporting that many women are highly offended at South African President, Jacob Zuma’s comments.
Speaking on a television show of his daughter Duduzile’s marriage, Zuma expressed happiness for his daughter and then went on to say:
“I was also happy because I wouldn’t want to stay with daughters who are not getting married. Because that in itself is a problem in society. I know that people today think being single is nice. It’s actually not right. That’s a distortion. You’ve got to have kids. Kids are important to a woman because they actually give an extra training to a woman, to be a mother.”
This morning I briefly participated in a Facebook dialogue surrounding Zuma’s comments and my response to one woman who was seemingly offended by the comments were:
“I think Zuma’s comments may have been better stated or not stated at all-LOL!!! That being said, being a Mother and being a Wife are definitely powerful catalysts in the evolution of a woman. Trust me, before marriage and kids, I was the most self-involved person I know and these roles have both caused me to grow by leaps and bounds and they have taught me a lot about what it means to be a woman…#justsaying”
Some of the women who commented before and after I commented went as far as to call the President a “h***y nutcase”, presumably because Zuma is a polygamist who, the last time I checked, had four wives; that number may have since gone up to five, as of this year.
Another woman who commented called President Zuma an “idiot” and wondered why we even bothered to pay attention to his remarks.
Yet another woman questioned how the President could make those comments without considering that a woman may have the desire to be married or the desire to have children but may not have a man, saying,
I wonder what he proposes we single women do about his statement since both being married and having children depend on the consensual participation of a man! Even if we want to be married and have children we as women can do nothing but hope and wait!
I still maintain that President Zuma could have used a better choice of words, but I still feel that he is not entirely off the mark. In the dialogue, I was very open, sharing that before I got married, I tended to end relationships quickly and now realize that at some points, ending the relationship was robbing me of an opportunity to acquire relationship skills.
Every woman has her own journey to chart, but for many of us, being a wife and a mother teaches us so much about what it means to be a woman and it causes us to develop in ways that I feel we may not have done if we did not have those sacred responsibilities and roles.
I take issue with anyone who makes broad generalizations about how a woman show live her life; whether she should be single or married, a mother or not, or even if she is a mother, whether or not she chooses to work or not. That being said, I shared with my Facebook friends that as I get older, I have learned to embrace very aspect of being a woman, even the parts that make me appear vulnerable.
I encourage women to exercise their right to choose what they want in life but I also tend to caution women that it’s important to find balance in the many views that we are exposed to. Sure, women have come a long way-we now have many more freedoms than our mothers and grandmothers had but that also gives us a lot of responsibilities.
We are not only responsible for ourselves. We are also responsible to our children, our husbands and our communities and societies at large. Strong marriages and families are the pillars of society and as much as I walk the talk of a “modern woman”, I draw the line at the point where I foresee destruction. Sure, marriage and children may not be for everyone, but it still has been proven over and over again that if we want to give our children the best in life, we must do everything that we can to raise them in strong, healthy and functional two parent homes.
President Zuma may have made a misstep in the delivery of his message, but at the end of the day, the message is clear: It’s good for a woman to find a husband and yes, having children does aid a woman in her evolution. That does not mean that a woman can not evolve to her full potential if she does not have children but there is no reason to be offended at the thought that our children can teach us aspects of womanhood that we may have never known without them.
Nomalanga helps Black Women thrive in their lives and careers. She is a Social Commentator, an Editor at Your Black World , Assistant Professor of Professional Studies and the reigning Mrs Botswana. Visit Nomalanga’s blog at successfulblackwoman.com
11 Responses to Nomalanga: South African President, Zuma Offends Women Saying It’s Not Okay to be Single, Women Need Children to Train Them to be Women
Leave a Reply
Follow Us!
These men, who want to control a woman’s life, need to take the back burner. Whatever decision, a woman wants to do with her life, SHE HAS THAT RIGHT, TO MAKE HER OWN DECISIONS. If she wants to stay single and not have children; that’s her choice. Every woman or man doesn’t want to have children. They may want to travel the world; be spontaneous, enjoy life to the fullest, but a child or children would hamper those wants and desires.
I didn’t have my son until I was 39, and he’s 23, and he will be graduating from college next May!!! I found out, that having a child at this age was a plus. Because when I got married, we already had purchased a home, we both had good jobs and we planned our son. We waited 5 years and saved. Everybody has different goals in life. If you can’t enjoy yourself, you will be a very unhappy person.
All men are not father-material. Just because they produce a child into the world; does not make them a man! I know brothers, who have 12 babies by 5 different women. He’s not working; they ain’t working, but he calls himself a ‘man.’ THAT AIN’T NO MAN; THAT’S A BOY; and A BREEDER!!!
Then there are brothers, who are married, and take care of business. Nice homes, nice wife, respectable children, and down to Earth. He loves being a family man; while some brothers like the fast lane!
CHOICES! The name of the game is choices. Wouldn’t this be a boring world if, you didn’t have choices?
LET PEOPLE LIVE, LOVE AND FIND HAPPINESS WITHIN THEMSELVES…THAT’S THE SPIRIT OF THE BLACK MESSIAH!!!
“You cannot please anybody else; until you learn to please your own Soul.” -Derrick
L ife
L ove
L aughter
ANY OTHER WAY?
Your family is lucky to have you, Derrick. You’re the best.
The only way to really control procreation is through abstinence, good birth control, or abortion. It is good to have, so called, ideal situations to bring children into the world, but when the situations are not ideal you must thank God for the blessing – your child, regardless of circumstance.
I would never have a child at 39 and have a teenager in the house in my 50′s, at a time when most people health start failing and many can barely take care of themselves. Derrick your chances of seeing your grandchildren and great grandchildren are slim to none, if your son waits until 39 like you did.
In this economy no one, absolutely no one, should be chastised for not having a job. Sometimes the only thing poor people will have in this life are each other, and their children. Who are we to say that they dont deserve one???? God doesn’t check to see who is employed when he passes babies out. Thank God, that he looks out for the poor and the rich. The ones who wait until they’re rich enough to have a child many times are too old to conceive one.
I’m sick of Americans, especially black Americans, who have a little money, looking down on our poor people who have children while single and poor, and on welfare, BUT these same folks say nothing when the white man sends money to poor single african mothers with foreign aid, and our churches beg us to feed them, and yet American Christian mothers who do pay sales taxes and put their welfare check back into the economy and create jobs are criticized!!!
Stop being stuck on stupid. The white man gladly sends foreign aid to africa to spread white imperialism, and the poor black american mother is criticized for getting welfare by blacks and whites. Stop the stupidness. If we have billions to send to black africa, we can certainly take care of our own poor.
@Derrick,
Need your help family. We have some fake trolls on here trying to promote dissension between Africans in American and Africans on the Continent. See this Jake idiot below. They go by a variety of handles and they specifically target Nomalanga. I know what your about, so I need to give you the heads up about these motherfuckas trying to lead our people astray. Here is my email if you want to speak with me specifically: ewright637@hotmail.com.
I think the author is mistaken completely. Everyone does not see marriage as a come up and is not that important. Its not important because it means something different to everyone. There are some men who do not need to be married at all because they are abusive and womanizers are more dangerous to everyone, than to themselves.
Women support patriarchy even though they receive few, if any, benefits from that support. You’ll always find members of the oppressed groups promoting and supporting the dominant groups ideology. It’s sad, but sexist conditioning is often effective.
So just being born a female doesn’t make you woman enough? Apparently, allowing a man to knock you up and be saddled with raising his kids is what makes you a woman…I had no idea I wasn’t whole until I had kids! SMDH
They have a right to do whatever they want in africa. America has no right to tell them how to live, and they should stop taking the white man’s foreign aid. The indians dont take it. The chinese dont take it. The koreans dont take it. I wish these darn africans would have some pride and do for themselves, instead of making all blacks look like incompetent, irresponsible, savage fools. They have the biggest continent, and the most resources, so why are they so d**n dependent??? When they come to america they work hard to con black americans into believing they’re all queens and kings, and geniuses, yet they cant even rule over their own people properly without white man’s interference.
MR PRESIDENT KIDS DOES NOT TEACH YOU HOW TO BE A WOMAN YOU ARE BORN THAT WAY ALSO HOW THE h**l A CHILD GONNA TEACH YOU TO BE A WOMAN. I WAS A WOMAN BEFORE I HAD KIDS. IT WAS MY CHOICE FIRST OF ALL TO BE MARRIED WHEN MY MARRIAGE DIDNT WORK I SET OUT TO RAISE MY CHILDREN ON MY OWN SO I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU DO OVER THERE IN AFRICA WITH MORE THAN ONE WIFE WHO YOU AFRICANS CONTROL I WOULD NEVER HAVE A MAN CONTROL ME POINT BLANK PERIOD
Personal realities do tend to be fissures and fractures in society. But without well laid bricks and a rock solid foundation and a roof that keeps the rain out we are so much flesh for the predators. In some cultures mothers teach the boys how to hunt while the men are out on the hunt. This is old school grocery shopping. It worked here in the United States until the Europeans shut down a herd of buffalo that covered three[3] states in volume. They wasted it and brought in cattle. We were forced off of our land at gunpoint because some French Dude needed money for his army to rampage through Europe. The women were instrumental in the survival of many of our tribes in the counsel, in the home and in our government as we addressed the nation that hemmed us in and attempted to starve us to death and killed us when we moved for our survival. Being a woman is much more than semantic disagreement with a president. Women are the life support of nations.