About two months ago, I went to pick up my 8-year-old niece from school. It being the last day of the term, they had been allowed to come to school in home clothes and make up. The first thing I noted was she had adorned on trendy fitting jeans and a t-shirt that had the drawing of Dora the Explorer in glitter and sequins. She also spotted bright red lipstick and some purplish mascara. She looked quite good but as we drove towards their home, I noted that she had difficulties in drinking water from her water bottle. I noticed that any time she wanted to take a sip; she tilted her head backwards, held the bottle at an angle to the mouth and poured the water right in. She then would swallow and put her lips in a pout so as to check if her lipstick had rubbed off. She would do this by taking side glances through the driving side mirror. When she realized that I was watching her she feigned having an irritant in the eye and vigorously rubbing her eyelid. My niece realized too late that she had messed up her beautiful mascara.
Her actions set me thinking, and I soon realised what I hated about putting make up on my face. I have not done make up for more than 20 years and I do not intend to start now. As much as I loved the enhancement that make up did to my face, during my youth I hated applying lipstick only to leave half of it on a rim of a cup as I drank my umpteenth cup of tea. To be sincere I have never put eye shadow on my eyes because I am one of those people who are fidgety. I will keep rubbing my eyes, touching my face, scratching and will have steaks of different shades of colour at the end of the day. You know some red or streak of red brown oozing out of my lip line because I forgot and licked half the side of my lip or smudges of black mixed with some green and purple around my eyes.
I have the utmost respect for makeup artists. They are that, artists. They can turn a seemingly boring, nondescript face to one that is animated and interesting. They are able to do in a few minutes what takes plastic surgeons many days and months to achieve. Cover those flaws on our face and bodies. They hide what we don’t like, our flaws and flaunt what compliments us be it the skin, the mouth, the hairline, the eyes, the big birthmark on the cheek….. So in the absence of a makeup artist, and they are damn expensive and can only be afforded for special occasions, we, ladies become our own makeup artists.
We, by trial and error find out what works for us. I have always wondered, why do we bother to shave our eyebrows only to draw them back with an eye pencil. Why do we glue in eyelashes and not wash our faces for more than seven days in the name of not washing off the lashes. Have you ever seen a lady who has shaved off her eye brows with an exception of a small almost square patch left at the bridge of the nose, or even a flat line drawn. Throw in lips that have been coloured with a thick painting of red lipstick that has been outlned with a black eye pencil and a face that has been caked with one inch of foundation powder that is about 2 or 3 shades off the natural colour of the skin and the face is complete to face the world. Oooh and the eyelids have been painted a sickly hue of pink, purple or green that looks like the works of Marangi gone crazy with gloss paint. This mama has that permanent surprised look even in the face of tragic news of a loved one.
When I was in college, there was this girl that we called Lucy Christmas Tree. Lucy was a well-endowed black beauty who had a gait to kill for. Her skin was flawless with one dark, almost black hue. She loved the pussycat hair style that she held up with colourful luminous pink, green or yellow hair bands and hairpins. She would have at least 8- 10 pins in her hair at any one given time. Lucy loved wearing the briefest of the miniskirts that she could lay her hands on. More often than not, the skirts were multi coloured chiffon and would be blown up by a slight breeze in the air. Lucy made it a point to come to class late and definitely later than the lecturer. Her grand entrance would always bring the lecture to a halt as we all waited for her to find an empty seat usually in front or at the the middle of a row of men; she would sashay with her heels clicking tip tap as she muttered “excuse me … excuse me…” got to her seat, settled down, picked her note book and looked up expectantly at the lecturer to continue with the day’s topic of differential equations. It would take the class another five minutes to settle down as men discussed in low tunes;
“Did you see that”,
“You know that is one piece of ….”
“I was with her last night ……”
Lucy’s sexual prowess was always a topic during my economics class, talk about the theory of supply and demand….! Talk got so bad that that guys started spreading rumours of how Lucy told a guy that they go under the bed to complete their copulation act in the midst of a probable GSU invasion during a university student strike.
What was surprising is that none of the negative comments and innuendos seemingly ever got to Lucy. Her face was always blank. Devoid of any emotions, any animation, it was a beautiful nauseatingly made up face. That said nothing. A hauntingly beautiful mask. Lucy had no girlfriends and the few that she had knew very little about her. Somehow, a rumour started that Lucy had been a rape victim when she was in high school. The rumour had it that when she was in Form 1 her all girls’ school went on strike and she fled into the bushes near the school compound where she got lost. She asked for assistance from a group of boys who took advantage of the situation and raped Lucy for the better part of the day and night. None of the girls, who were in school with her, knew much about her apart from the façade that Lucy presented every day to the outside world.
We used to sit and discuss on her seemingly exhibitionist and sexually promiscuous lifestyle. Lucy was an enigma. A girl that we never understood. How could one so intelligent be so promiscuous to the point that she used to sleep with anything in a trouser? Was Lucy addicted to sex? Was she in a twisted way trying to punish her rapists? Did she not have any self-control? Did she have any feelings for all the men who we purported and imagined to have had sexual intercourse with her? I remember a social work student telling us that it is possible for rape victim to have such tendencies. Later in life, I have learnt of what rape can do to the mind of the victim. The trauma of rape can lead to Post Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD). It messes up one’s mental health. In the society that we live in it is the rape victim’s fault that she or he had:-
- Dressed inappropriately, may be in a mini, a see through dress, tight fitting jeans, a trouser suit, or a skirt suit to a nightclub in the company of his or her friends.
- Being at the wrong place at the wrong the time, may be you were walking home from a jumuia prayer meeting and the short cut to your house has a blind corner that is not well lit. After all, it is just 8 in the evening and there are quite a number of people using the same alley.
- Being in dubious company may be you decided to stay late in the office and your colleague who happens to live near you offers to wait and accompany you home. You are using the same matutus anyway
- Said no when a woman’s no is always a yes. It is common knowledge that any woman worth her salt will never say yes is matters pertaining to sex. Women are coy creatures and they will always play the leading-on flirting game in which they never say what they mean or do what they say.
- It was not true. It a love affair gone sour. The man is accused of rape falsely. It is revenge. The woman wants to be paid a certain amount of money to drop charges.
Sadly, these are just but a few reasons that are used to justify rape. I have learnt that rape messes the victim up, physically, psychologically, spiritually, morally, mentally; in fact, all spheres of the victim are messed up. This is compounded by the fact that the victim is raped all over again when he or she is blamed and stigmatized for the very act that violated them. Sexual rape to a very large extent is legally institutionalized to be pro-perpetrator in the sense that the burden of proof lies with the rapist and not the victim. It is one of the few crimes that the victim is called upon in court to proof beyond any reasonable doubt that he or she was raped. It is a crime of “he said” “she said” “he did” and “she did” The victim has to relive the whole criminal act all over again. The victim has to remember all the nitty gritty details of the rape to prove the crime in court. No wonder very few rape case are reported to the authorities and very few are ever taken to court for prosecution.
The legal term for the rape of an underage child is defilement. That is what Lucy was a child, underage when she was raped. I wish I would get an explanation of how the rape of a 3-month-old child, a six year old, a 16 year old, any child, can be termed as defilement. Defilement means to make unclean, to pollute, to make impure, and to violate the chastity of. The law therefore assumes that since the child is still maturing, the unclean act that has been perpetrated on her will be wiped clean. What detergent or bleach can be used to clean the mind of a child who has been violated and raped by the very people that the child trusts?
I have also come to realize that there is a very big probability that the only way that Lucy survived the heinous act was to act the way she did. Wear a mask, have a facade to hide the mental anguish and torment that she underwent. She wore make up that was horrible to look at, wore clothes that society frowned upon in an effort to hide her secret. It was a way of telling the men that if she was to have sex with them it was at her terms not theirs. That any sexual act she did was out of her own volition and not the men’s.
At the time Lucy was raped it was taboo to discuss it. It was taboo to say that you are rape survivor. Now I recognise that Lucy was not a rape victim but a survivor. Rape did not define her she defined it. Lucy is actually doing very well in her chosen career as a social worker.
madhatterkenya 