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Bongiwe Nkomazana

Over the past year, I have been surprised by the number of issues that present challenges to women.

It is not until you are proactive in trying to create awareness around them that you realise how many they are.

To think that a topic has been up for debate almost every Saturday since I came onto this platform is insane.

What makes it even crazier is the fact that there are many more issues that we are still to talk about and probably a lot more that we will never get around to discuss.

As promised last week, we are keeping it a little light today but keep in mind that with every experience in life there is a lesson.

Hands up if you have let things and/or acts that have upset you go unaddressed.

Keep your hand up if you let them go more times than you should. F.Y.I my hands are right up there with yours.

I feel like as women especially, we let disrespectful comments and actions towards us or to the next woman go with no repercussions and just to set the tone for this article I would like us to keep in mind the quote that states that people treat us how we allow them to.

When I stepped back and thought about it, it is true for almost every avenue and/or relationship in our lives.

I have always been a little timid and very obedient to my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, older cousins included.

By being this way they got comfortable with me being passive and now that this has changed because I am older and can stand up for myself, the people in my life take offence at my new voice.

I am only realising it now, as I write this, that the unfair treatment that is given to me despite me having been a good kid definitely has a lot to do with them but it has more to do with my inability to stand up for myself in the past.

It also applies to the parental role you know. Your children will treat you how you allow them to and how they see you allow everyone else to treat you.

There was a video that did its rounds some time back of a mother trying to discipline her son by taking away his electronics.

Obviously this was not in the motherland because we all know how we discipline around here.

What made the video go viral was the manner in which the son responded to his mother . . . with utter disrespect.

It is either this boy had serious issues or he was just mirroring how someone else treated his mother.

So the point that I am trying to make here is that we should not give away our power to be treated with dignity and integrity by being docile in what we accept to come our way.

When we say call it out, we mean speak up about something and get an explanation for your peace of mind because usually when negative things are said or done to us, we start to question our worth and our abilities with no answers in return.

Because I am the one writing about this, I will give myself and my experiences up as an offering of examples that also double up as hot tea.

So, sometime back this guy contacted me and we talked to a point where he asked for a date.

When he did not follow through with that date at first I let it be because I did not want to come across as the crazy drama queen, which I can be.

However, the more I thought about it the more I was like but no, this man is super disrespectful.

To reach out to me when I was not trying to be reached, to tell me things that I did not ask him to tell me and to set up a date and make me clear my schedule only for him to ghost me was just beyond my understanding so I called him out on it.

I sent him a very polite text stating to him what he already knew. I wanted him to know that it is not good to waste other people’s time.

I got my power back and continued with my life. Your situation might not be as trivial as mine but I hope you get the gist.

There are a lot of women that are being dragged like filth in their relationships.

It has a lot to do with type of man that they are with but I will say it again, it has a lot do with them allowing him to be that type with them.

Of course you cannot control what another person does but you can control how you react to what they do to you.

Whether it is your husband or your boyfriend or just a potential someone, lay out your standards because these sons of the Lord try us.

They bore us Lord with their uncanny behaviour so we are setting our standards and calling them out on any gibberish.

Then there are the incidents that happen at work. These ones are tricky because you have to maintain a level of professionalism in your calling out.

Do not go and say I told you to cuss out Rebecca from the accounts department. You have to be strategic.

How I do it is to maintain a smile on my face and let my work do the talking especially where there have been efforts to discredit my abilities.

Calling someone out on something does not always have to be loud and aggressive.

In fact, I think it has more impact if it is executed calmly and respectfully because it gives the other person a chance to step back and think about their actions versus them retaliating in defence mode.

At the end of the day, people will always find fault in everything you do so being a people pleaser is out of the window.

The only person you owe anything to is yourself so do what you need to do to be true to yourself.

Also remember the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you so that you don’t find yourself being called out on something too often.