I never trust woke people.
On the flip side, it is actually good to stay woke.
It generally means being socially aware.
Being a half millennial and half Gen Z, I learn a lot of things being a young woman.
I think you already know my age by now.
Being in so many spaces where I interact with both sexes, I learn new things every single day.
I recently realised that not every person has a modernised mentality.
People are brought up differently and hence, over time, we always end up perceiving things differently.
I travelled to a coastal town with some friends some time back.
Being well conversant with the place, my buddies relied on me to do the planning and manoeuvring.
The number of times I tried negotiating for better prices in transport, food and other stuff was too many as we moved from one place to another.
Often when dealing with men, they would ignore me and talk to one of the guys in our party.
At first, I felt really offended, but the chat I had with my friends made me realise people are different.
“Sometimes it is all about the upbringing and act of being narrow-minded,” one friend said.
“In the world we live in today, some traditions that people still follow include such where the man thought it was right to speak to the guy instead of you,” another friend said.
The battle between today’s woman and the golden day’s woman is a never-ending one if you know what I mean.
As a young lady, I feel I have every right to be treated equally to a man, to some extent, and I still feel like the traditional way of life of a woman can still be in play but in a different realm.
Not so many people are woke to this.
I fail to understand how the woman of today still struggles to fit in.
I have nothing against people who feel like women come second or women should submit.
It is also very okay for everyone to have their own opinion.
I was, however, disappointed that the men I interacted with when I was in the coastal town with friends felt like I wasn’t the right person they should talk to.
I know that there are some who are still living in the traditional way of doing things.
But where do we draw the line?
I have worked with male colleagues who prefer the ‘traditional woman’ as compared to the ‘modern-day lady.’
Even if they do prefer the latter, there is always doublespeak.
There will always be exceptions and hence why I think this debate will never come to an end.
Respecting people’s cultures and traditions is not a problem but accepting that times are changing is something we should all embrace.
If we can accept that some things should be left in the past, then we can definitely avoid sweeping things under the rug and acting like they should just stay the way they are.
Change is inevitable.
We can still uphold our traditions and equally be open-minded to amend some of them to keep up with the ever-changing world.
There are so many instances where the modern woman is compared to the traditional one; some modern-day men feel that the former should be treated as the latter.
Let’s try and change our way of thinking for starters.