The misconception that educated women are arrogant and do not stay married is rather ridiculous yet is believed by many in the Zongo comm...
The misconception that educated women are arrogant and do not stay married is rather ridiculous yet is believed by many in the Zongo community.
Most men in the community are scared to marry educated or career women. The bold ones who gather courage to push this agenda are being discouraged by their friends and have to sometimes battle their families to achieve their dreams.
At the just ended Marriage and Relationship conference organaized by IQra show and AlQalam institute, most of the educated women guests complained about how men perceive them to be arrogant. They explain that because they have attained a certain level of professional (and educational) goals, these men believe they are many yards short of being 'marriage materials.'
Is it really true? Are these educated career women arrogant as they're being tagged? Well, no one goes to the classroom to learn arrogance as a course so this whole idea is certainly a misconception.
There are no real statistics of divorces in the Zongo community that actually states the number of educated women involved or otherwise states that less educated apparently stay longer in the marriage than educated ones. But the truth is there are several other reasons why some marriages do not work.
In a typical Zongo community, some families are known to be arrogant. This is usually because of some wealth they posses or some past glory they enjoy. The more educated families are often rather reserved.
"However, a person can also decide to change the status Quo of that family and be different" she added.
Men need enough courage to be able to approach women who they think have attained some level of self confidence through education. It only takes a man with low self esteem who does not value education to see this woman as a threat rather than having her for himself.
Women from the Zongo community are fast rising in higher education and taking several leadership positions. The community can now boast of top educated and cooperate women compared to previous years and it's high time society in general accept these women as an asset and not a liability.
After all, the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) said: "seeking knowledge is obligatory upon every muslim.
Mariam Shaibu.
