Celebrating women and how come there is no Men’s Day

This month, while we celebrated Women’s Day, some boy children asked me one of the frequently asked questions around that time of year: How come there is no Men’s Day? I attempted to explain that the woman is a pillar of humanity and yet many of her kind are overburdened, often unseen and prone to abuse. I don’t know if the young boys understood it. In the olden days, we used to say ‘it’s a man’s world’. The jury is out on if that still holds true.

This week, I would like to celebrate several categories of women who have been influential in my life; some of them are too modest to appreciate being mentioned here by name but from the descriptions, they shall know who they are. I will start with my female teachers—I had some of the finest.
 
While we often celebrate classroom subjects, some of my best female teachers were music instructors. They were tough and they held us school choir members to almost impossibly high standards. I can testify that thanks to them, my singing is exceptional and though I am not in a band and not some sort of recording artiste, I can hit some head-turning notes in church and I have done stage performances. 

In no particular order, one of them is the better half of a bishop, the other one used to sing with Diplock Segawa and the Wrens and one of them sang in a collection of Kampala’s best church choirs. I bring this up because some of the life lessons we learn are not delivered in a regular classroom. In my music instruction, I picked up confidence and attention to detail because these women were very particular and also quite tough.
The next category of women I would like to celebrate are the promoters and some of these, I believe ought to be named. I owe my beginnings in writing and journalism to Ayeta Ann Wangusa who believed in a little, inexperienced graduate enough to introduce me to some editors. My journey is filled with female promoters in various media houses and outside them. 

One of them is possibly one of the most thorough editors I have come across. The day she arrived in the newsroom, nothing was ever the same again and that includes my writing. There is a good friend and colleague who always passed me contacts under the table, which would otherwise have been out of my reach. 
There is a boss who would even tweet my praises at the end of a good day and one who carried a bag full of baby clothes when I was a new mother. Some women just call to encourage and say that you are doing the right thing: Others are in the office every day offering a smile and compliment. Whatever all these amazing women have done or contributed, I celebrate them as we come to the end of this Women’s Month. Women promoting other women is always a beautiful thing to see.

The women in my family are extraordinary in ways I cannot fully explain here, except to say that I come from a long line of women whose strength shines through in the face of all forces good and bad. The beauty about being a woman is that you can be strong and feminine. Also, contrary to the society’s artificial standards, there is no requirement for a woman to be perfect. This month, I celebrate the women I know with all their perfect imperfections. You lift me up. We lift each other up.

Ms Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant     
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