Me and My Honey Brown Uterus

All my life, I have always thought more about being a woman than I thought about being Black/African. Up until not very long ago, when I thought about discrimination, gender, not race, came to mind. This is not to say I did not watch Roots as a child, but race issues previously felt distant and foreign.

Before I go further, let me clarify, I am African, born and raised on the continent. Some people would call my complexion honey brown, but I am black by the general definition. The problem, however, is that when I considered equality, I did not consider the color of my skin as much of a problem as my possession of a uterus. I was used to being the only female or one of the few. 10% of my computer science class were females, in all the roles I held I was the only or first female on the team and so on.

All this changed a couple of months ago when I had an interesting conversation with an Australian colleague. 

We were at a work function doing one of those ice breaker exercises, before long, we were trading stories about our childhoods and surprisingly, a woman who looked nothing like me and who grew up halfway across the world from where I grew up shared very similar challenges and issues with me from unfair societal expectations of women to the constant balancing act of building a career and attempting to have a life. After a lengthy conversation, I would have thought both our parents hailed from the same hometown if it were not for her brunette hair and light brown eyes. The thing is though, while we shared similar struggles as a result of our gender, she would never have to think of the color of her skin as a shortcoming. 

Do I feel disadvantaged? Not really. Do I sometimes wish I could club the stupid out of some people’s heads on race or gender issues? Most definitely!

You see, a couple of months back, I would never have given the color of my skin any thought just like my Australian friend because all my life, all I've ever had to deal with have been gender issues - right from the minute I chose baggy jeans over miniskirts to this very day. So as you would expect, gender is a big deal for me. On the other hand, there are people all over the world who have struggled all their lives with some other form of discrimination. Women and men battling gender, race, religion, poverty, politics and sexual orientation!

This fact made me realize that no struggle is less noble and no pain or discrimination less valid. Ultimately, what it comes down to is the fact that we all have mountains to climb and some of us may have more of the world focused on our issues at different moments in time, but all of us should strive to reach our summits victorious wearing our battle scars like badges of honor. Also, before you broadly make judgements about a person based on some 'fact' like race, gender, or religion, think about it for a second longer than you normally would.