LETTER TWENTY ONE

(This piece is the fifth in a series titled “Freedom” on the network.)

X,

As a product and representative of the education system that claims to broaden the intellectual and empathetic capacity of children,
I apologize.
To you and the whole lot of you who have studied, at some point in their lives, amid structures setup to better, further and enhance society.

Clearly, we got it all wrong – in ignoring and never addressing the elephant in the room (which shouldn’t have been one in the first place).

Sex work is a choice.
A tough one,
A multi-layered one,
One that we haven’t tried hard enough to know and therefore, don’t fully understand.

That is my only defense (if I were allowed one, that is), in not bringing it up in the classroom, although I could and should have.

Sometimes, it’s also not a choice.
It is made in moments of desperation; in moments where no alternative presents itself; when the family simply needs to be fed.
And there are no two ways about that!

Women are resilient beings.
Mothers, when it comes to their children, are the most resilient beings to exist.
While nobody is anybody to assert, “The ends justify the means”,
(We do not sit on higher seats)
The lengths a mother would go to keep her child alive, can be questioned but not always reasoned for nor understood.
And we should simply accept that line of reasoning.

And, what if it weren’t to feed or to salvage or because you’re a mother or a sister or a daughter, desperate and responsible to keep the home afloat?
Well then, it’s a choice.
Are you answerable for it?
No.

How long before we stop needing to explain the choices women make?
I don’t know, X.
I’m sorry I don’t.

In response to your tirade, I will write this though:
The fault is not an educator’s alone.
The fault lies is in our collective folly as a people and the lies we often tell under the garb of furthering feminism.

Not all these women are the victims they are made out to be.
There are women and men out there who are against the liberalization of women.
There are women and men out there who are painting a very dark and different picture of the condition of women practicing the profession; of what drives them to make the choices they do – to colour our visions against the trade of sex – all of which is often untrue and unnecessary.

Hence, when we do ferry and squeeze the elephant into the classroom,
False assumptions must be sucked out.

Freedom is a conversation.
An open one.
That conversation is an exchange of perspective, supported with facts, supported by reason and supported by the need to unburden women off the need to explain the choices they make.
That conversation cannot be had too conservatively nor too recklessly.
That conversation leads us somewhere…
Potentially out of the stalemate we find ourselves currently stalled in.

I am willing to flip open that page.
After all, the apology is only as good as the action taken to rectify it, if there was one.

Yours,
Here to listen and learn and talk and teach and grow,

Prof. Gyaan.

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