What Would I Do?
We have all been rocked by the video showing a young women being ganged up on by a mob of men claiming to get justice for a boda boda she supposedly hit. In the video, you hear her chilling screams and it reveals that she was literally fighting off men who tore off her clothes, leaving her half naked and were now groping her. This video sent chills through my body as I felt her desperation.
I looked at my husband and said, “What if I had Kīyo in the car with me?”
I couldn’t help it, I tried to put myself in her shoes. I am sure most of us did. I found myself trying to come up with solutions and things I would have done differently. One- I wouldn’t open the door. Seems easy enough, but once you are in an accident, isn’t your first instinct to get out and access the damage? In this way, I have already failed to protect myself if people come swarming around the car.
Alright, two - if I find myself in that situation, I would call the police or someone to back me up! All this is assuming I still have my phone with me. In the video, it didn't look like she had her phone or bag near her. As expected in such scenarios, I am pretty sure someone took off with them. In the video, there was a man who was also trying to take the keys out of the ignition. So no, calling for help might not work.
Okay, three - defend myself somehow with weapons hidden in the car. Well, if I wasn’t a frequent user of a club or knife to defend myself, what good would it do me to try and ward of what looked like over 50 men out for my blood?
Whatever I could think of, I couldn’t settle on a defence strategy that just worked.
Then I began asking myself, why is being a woman such a vulnerable thing? Why do we live in a world where ripping a woman’s dignity is the first thing people do? Why do we have to make women feel vulnerable, small and weak? Why do we have to assert power over them and take out our rage, or sexual frustration on them?
Why did they have to do it that way?
I went back to the question I asked my husband. “What if I had Kīyo with me in the car?”. He came back to me with this question. “Do you think they would treat you more humanely just because you had a baby in the car?”.
Honestly, I don’t think so.
This is why having a daughter freaks a lot of us out. This world is not an easy place for women and at some point in her life, I will have to sit down with her and let her now just how hard it can be out there just because of the sex she was born into. I can’t put her in a bubble. I can’t protect her forever, because I cannot protect myself either.
What would I do if I was in that lady’s shoes?
I don’t know. I just hope to never find out
From the podcast
On the topic of having daughters, our story teller last time also freaked out when she found out her second baby would be a girl. She one too multiple scans hoping that each would contradict what the previous had shown and would all of a sudden say that it was a boy instead. Why was she so freaked out?
Have you listened to her story yet? Listen to it on all major podcast platforms or directly on Spotify (Mama Tales Season 2 Episode 3: Play Is The Work of The Child).
If you fancy, you can also play it right below
Something to look forward to
I have some amazing news!
I will be dropping the very first special episode this Saturday 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
Like I mentioned before, my plan for this season is to answer and tackle a lot of issues and topics that we come across during those first few years of our kids life.
The first topic that I will be handling is Baby Led Weaning! As an advocate and follower of BLW, this was such an exciting episode to record and it did help that I did it with the help of Jenny Best, the founder of Solid Starts, arguably the largest BLW resource across the globe!
In this episode, we talk about what our traditional idea of baby food is and how BLW challenges that, the benefits of BLW and some of the major concerns as well. Jenny also provides important tips to avoid picky eating whether you are using Baby Led Weaning or not in your journey
I use my own weaning journey to tackle this topic so there will be special appearances from my little girl.
Save the date: Saturday, 12th March 2022 and 9am!
UPDATE: Here is the episode
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Love
Sally
