Description
Woman of Integrity – An Introduction
‘Oh! You have a girl,’ said the doctor. ‘The first boy you have will now have a sister.’
Mother was happy, but would be happier to have more boys before a girl, being a woman who came from a very culture-bound village in the then East Central State of Nigeria. My father never cared whether it was a boy or a girl. The baby girl was named Ifeoma Catherine. Ifeoma in Igbo means good thing in life, and Catherine was named after the Royal Queen Catherine the Great from England. Mother was very young and naïve to understand the culture when she got married.
Mother later had two more boys after Ifeoma; and then became aware of how beautiful she was, and therefore could no longer abide with the culture. She left her husband as she needed her own independence, having been married at the age of twelve and becoming too sophisticated to be pinned down.
Catherine Ifeoma Elebo (nee Ike) was born into a culture-shaped society in Nigeria where even in this present generation, women struggle to identify themselves to have equal rights and many individuals believe that culture is more powerful than life itself. Prejudice against women in that part of the world defines their relationship in everything, including fortune, politics, economics and the social sphere. Women have grown to fight these negative biases but there are still many wars to be fought as in other parts of the world.
Civilization and education have proved that all men and women were created equal. Nigeria, being a member of the United Nations, upholds equality of all human beings, but like many nations of the world, it still has a highly embarrassing record of gender discrimination emanating from the custom and tradition in different tribes. This is evident when a child is born in Africa; the first question would be, ‘What did she give birth to? Is it a boy? Oh! The lineage of the family is preserved because the boy will answer the father’s name till the end of his life! But a girl would eventually get married to another family and build up that family. A girl may be married to another nation and the father’s name would be forgotten. She may be forgotten in that family and would not have anything to do with the father’s landed property. The man, by right, will be ascribed to the continuation of that lineage with his surname.’
We live in a world of many illusions where our human beliefs and behaviours are ritualized. Many of these orientations about cultural limitations started from the birth of men and women and shape the world we are today. But I have the belief that God created them equal, male and female, during creation. This belief makes a great difference in shaping my inner person.
It is believed that each one of us is a master of our fate and the captain of our own soul. What one thinks of oneself is more important than what others think of one.
Though we were tattooed from the cradle with beliefs from the tribes, I believe one cannot educate man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imaginations, no matter how reasons may reject them.
The most powerful thing one can do is to change ideological beliefs about life, people and reality towards something more positive, and act accordingly. For all that we are is the result of what we think; the mind is everything, what we think, we become. Whatever we think of ourselves will be more important than what others think about us.
I brought this philosophy into my family and instilled it in my children. My belief is, that everyone of us in this life, male or female, should live his/her own God-given life from the conscience without any inhibition from culture, man, woman, family, or society. Bearing this in mind, I have moved all forces to get what I wanted in life, my cultural background as a woman notwithstanding.
My character formation was developed based on the determination to move on in life; cross every barrier to achieve my dreams; not allowing any inhibition, cultural setbacks, or taboos to set me back from knowing what I stand for, nor limit what I feel for. We have to control our destiny, for God created the whole world for all of us and where to place our feet is limitless.
Today, people have started to realize the importance of womanhood, hence in many sectors in Nigeria, women are being recognized as equal human beings and are given positions just as men. These steps, though not enough, have shown how long and how far women have fought to come along.
