In Africa, uneducated women constitute a large part of the fairer sex than those educated or business managers. These women are the core of the family and actively participate in the economy. But they suffer martyrdom daily in our towns and villages. For the happiness of the children, our mothers kill themselves but always feast on the hope of a bright future. Today, I pay tribute to the women who care about us, to whom we owe our successes. It’s about ”women in the shadows.”
The lives of “women in the shadows”
These women are the first to wake up early and go to bed late. Traveling kilometers of degraded roads before going to the markets, to the fields, or sometimes to have access to the precious liquid (drinking water), are real difficulties which they face in a deafening silence. The other cliché of women in our villages is that of those who carry heavy fagots and other bicycles on their heads or on their saddles on their way back from the fields.
In cities, “women in the shadows » existent.
We see them in our homes, neighborhoods or markets. At the Dantokpa market, they are a reference. Some of them sell pure water, bread, etc. Others are busy serving us our favorite foods every morning. (Abôbô, Atassi, Paste…) that they sell under a blazing sun. The problems they encounter in a day of sales with customers (men) we have no idea.
Why do women in the shadows fight?
Precisely, it is to feed the household (especially the children). These women, I call them “Women in the Shadows”. Women who fight day and night, like no other and who are unknown to the general public. They have nothing to envy to those which are in the offices in town. And who are mistresses of great casualness, and laziness in state structures.
The women in the shadows are those who harness themselves day and night for the happiness of the children. Behind this perpetual search for peace for the family cocoon, they participate in the growth of the national economy. Because many of them work in the informal sector. In Benin, the informal sector represents more than 50%. They are undoubtedly the ones who shape our economy on the one hand. In dantokpa, those who have or do not have a shop fill the coffers of the Autonomous Markets Management Company (SOGEMA) through the payment of tickets. And, in our neighborhoods, in front of their displays, they are on the heels of tax agents.
The woman in the shadows and the educated woman
These women are not the ones who spend all day in an air-conditioned office.
- They don’t understand the big legal concepts like Marie Elise Gbedo.
- They don’t know what you call “Feminism”
- They do not appear in the major decision-making bodies,
- They are not class « Caste » dont Frantz Fanon makes a case in his work “the damned of the earth”,
- Faby I. Amazone will say that these women experience a “masked evil in resilience”, since in spite of themselves, many are psychologically and physically beaten by their wives…
The biggest difference between them and the others is that they are uneducated. Their social living conditions remain indifferent to middle-class women. And yet, our mothers are fighting. And, the results seem to appear in the shadows.
That’s why I call them “women in the shadows”. Happy day to our mothers who suffer in the shadows. Besides, they don’t know anything about the March 08 concept. They are content to live on a daily basis.