Posted by BY J E SOLOMON
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I want to touch on an aspect of women that had often struck me with wonder and amusement. It is their seemingly uncanny capacity to endure physical pain under situations where the most masculine of men would usually scream and writhe in apparent display of agony. Women also tend to have an ingrained capacity to handle adversity in ways unimaginable, a kind of inborn stubbornness that could drive them into acts beyond expectations.
The late First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D Roosevelt of the United States, once said this about women: “Women are like tea bags; you never know how strong they are, until they’re put in hot water.”
Let’s consider their capacity for pain endurance. Think of the discomfort of fetal development in the early stages of pregnancy and the latter part of carrying the real baby (or babies) in the womb for six or five months more. And in spite of all the accompanying heartburns, headaches, body aches (typically backaches), extreme tiredness, sleep problems, the morning sickness of indigestion and upset stomach, often with vomiting, and oh, the sometimes unusual swelling of the ankles and the itching, etc, etc, you might think the ordeal is too unpleasant to consider a second or third attempt. But no, they will do it over and over – in some cases 10 times or more. If you doubt it go to some parts of the world. And, oh, I didn’t even mention the excrutiating pains associated with the physical effort of labor.
A health care employee friend of mine, who frequently deals with the seriously injured and the not too seriously injured, tells me all the time, that, the generality of women have a greater capacity to endure physical pain compared with men. I have no doubt about that.
Recently, I had the occasion to witness an older woman with multiple fractures undergo a necessary medical study. The procedure, which involved having to move and also turn her several ways, all happened without this woman screaming or uttering a single “ouch” to my hearing. And yet the study revealed multiple broken bones in one arm and one leg. The amazing thing about this woman was that the injuries occurred, in her own words, “two evenings ago.” And she did not call 911 to be rushed to the hospital immediately.
I have seen men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, with far less injuries, and gosh! I must say that these age groups are somehow a pain in the neck when it comes to doing the kind of studies the woman had to go through. And if they happened to be injured on the job, the repetitive “ouch” and the “uh” might sound like lyrics in your ears throughout the procedure.
Talk about women’s resilience. A woman I know (let’s just identify her as Lucy) was driven out of her marital home after a quarrel with her husband over the man’s alleged infidelity. It was one of those male chauvinistic actions typical of some African males that are done on the spur of the moment and usually without any rational thinking. Well, he expressed regrets later.
Lucy, however, accepted the outcome and decided she wasn’t going back. Incensed by the demeaning effect of the incident, she swore never to return to her husband. With her new-found freedom, she worked herself out into becoming a highly successful businesswoman, and established distribution outlets in neighboring towns of the city. Eventually she started international business. She reportedly told friends she wanted to be better off financially and materially than her ex-husband and his wife combined.
During one of those military regimes in Ghana, shortage of essential commodities gave rise to hoarding and profiteering. Retailers of those commodities, who were mainly small-scale women traders, were frequently arrested and arraigned before kangaroo courts while the big-time middlemen escaped arrests. Disenchanted and angered over the frequent harassments, some market women organized a march to the seat of government to bare their bodies in protest. Yes, naked. And you think men will ever do such a thing.
Indeed, “women are like tea bags; you never know how strong they are until they’re put in hot water.”
In commemoration of International Women’s Day – March 8, 2011