\u201cWhy should women always be pawns of social and political injustice? You know what, I am always shocked that every time society goes hay-wire they target women for worse things,\u201d shouts Mama Mtoto, one of the suppliers of the local brew in my village in Salima District.<\/p>\n
\u201cAyi inu amayi amasiku ano mwanyanya kuvala ndekesha <\/em>(you modern women go to the extremes in dressing your mini-dresses),\u201d says an old man, wearing a tattered jacket, with a collar looking more greasy than a lubricated hub. He is garnishing his talk with sips of jang\u2019ala <\/em>(illicit spirit also known as Kachasu<\/em>)<\/p>\n \u201cOdala, tazisiyani izi, takangochotsani tsilo la nkolala ya jeketeyo <\/em>(Old man don\u2019t comment on these things, just go and remove the \u2018grease\u2019 on your collar),\u201d retorts Mama Mtoto, poking fun at the old man while igniting more debate.<\/p>\n I realise that the mentality of Malawians has changed to the point that even people from the rural areas of the country, are no longer conservative in their reasoning.<\/p>\n As we chat and craze ourselves with tots of the local distillate, a young Woman of about 16 comes along and later we hear she is Mama Mtoto\u2019s daughter. All eyes around pan around her, more because she is putting on a pair of short trousers.<\/p>\n \u201cSizomwe zimakambidwazi izi, chemwali takavalani bwino mungaone za ku Lilongwe <\/em>(This is what we have been talking about, please sister go back and dress properly),\u201d says the talkative old man with the tattered jacket.<\/p>\n But his sentiments spark the wrath of the younger generation. They rebuke the old man not to think like the old times when Malawians were too conservative.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, this is why we say you old people should not be taken seriously and no longer be given crucial responsibilities because they always are out of touch with reality. Do you know that these days, even here in the village people watch international channels on TV and also browse the internet and are in touch with global trends?\u201d says one man I am later told is a village head of one of the villages around.<\/p>\n People laugh, obviously rebuking the conservative old man who boasts that as far as he was concerned, every woman wearing a trouser or short trouser is immoral. He swears and says: \u201cI cannot date a woman in long trouser or miniskirt, no!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAm\u2019dala, at your age, do you think you can date anyone? Let alone a young girl? Inu sizidamwa inu! <\/em>(You don\u2019t have the energy to date any woman!),\u201d remarks one of the women helping Mama Mtoto selling the jang\u2019ala.<\/p>\n She plucks a hot one as the old man gets angry. \u201cYou say I cannot perform? Let us immediately go and come back to report to these young men that I am better than most of them. I don\u2019t use gondolosi <\/em>(aphrodisiacs), I am genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n It ignites more laughter and engages another gear for the debate. Mama Mtoto comes in again, \u201cI still maintain that it is wrong to victimise women always, why undress women in public? Do you men have manners? This is not Malawian.\u201d<\/p>\n A cousin of mine, who has been quiet during the debate, surprises all: \u201cYou know what, I agree with Mama here. But what women should do is to gang up and undress these young men who move around town half dressed with their trousers flying low in a fashion they call Kukhwefula<\/em>. This is a disgrace for men-flock and they are worse than those women in miniskirts since what they expose inside the trouser is always dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n This excites one of the friends from town who throws a round for all. That gesture is enough to win over the conservative old man who surprises all by saying he has transformed into an ambassador of advocating rights for women.<\/p>\n \u201cI will beat anyone who harasses any woman in this village including those who beat wives. And the worst await those who attempt to strip any woman naked in public \u2013 a real man only undresses a woman at the right time\u2026.kuchipinda<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWhy should women always be pawns of social and political injustice? You know what, I am always shocked that every time society goes hay-wire they target women for worse things,\u201d shouts Mama Mtoto, one of the suppliers of the local brew in my village in Salima District. \u201cAyi inu amayi amasiku ano mwanyanya kuvala ndekesha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45731,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45726\/revisions\/45731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}