Surviving as a Career Woman in Africa

A lady that is quite close to me called me today and complained that her husband asked her to resign from her job so she can focus more on raising their children as a housewife. The lady is a COO of a budding tech startup and she has been excelling in the tech industry. Now she has to choose between her marriage and her career; she can either abandon her career or exit her marriage; those are the hard options presented before her. 

I have seen numerous women who were doing well in their field that were forced to abandon all of it immediately they got married just to build their homes or not to lose their marriage, some, their husbands outright ordered them to be stay-at-home-moms. 

This is why I sometimes do feel bad for career women or women who decided not to yield to the conformity of society and have decided to make things off themselves. It is so heartbreaking that they in most cases cannot have a thriving career and have a good marriage. 

A woman chasing a career will always be subjected to societal pressure to get married, if the pressure is not coming from society the pressure will be coming from her immediate family. They will see her as a failure once she’s ageing and has refused to “settle down” or get married. This needs to stop. 

Men face such pressures from their families and societies as well but it is worst on the side of women, once the woman is approaching the age of thirty and she is yet to get married the family will be pressuring her and will let her know that “a woman who does not get married have failed in life”. 

Well, marriage is a choice, as a career woman, do not let them make you feel that you have failed in life if you for personal reasons do not nurture the idea of getting married. 

I honestly do understand the majority of career women’s reservations against marriage. Marriage can sometimes be a distraction to a focus-driven person. It is difficult to juggle between marriage and a thriving career successfully, one must take priority. It is even disastrous if you end up marrying the wrong partner. The fact that the chances of you marrying the wrong partner is higher than the chances of you marrying the right partner today is not helping matters and divorce in most cases is inevitable. 

Let us assume that a successful career woman finally bows to family and societal pressures and fortune smiled on her and she ends up marrying the right partner, she will definitely have to put a hold on her career to build a family inorder for her to pass the scorecard to be regarded as a good wife or a homemaker. Even if she can push forward the idea of having kids immediately; the advancement of career of some women once they get married is always quite difficult, because they may no longer be able to attend night meetings and travel around for conferences and represent their company whenever called upon, unlike their male counterparts. That is why in the corporate world, we tend to see a male colleague doing far better than the female counterpart despite the fact that they started at the same time, the female might even be smarter than the male but once she gets married, it truncates her chances of competing aggressively with the males.

It is worse if your husband as a successful career woman is the petty type or has a fragile ego or is possessive and domineering. That kind of husband tends to choose what the woman should do or what they should not do; meetings she can attend and meetings not to attend and African men always frown at their wives attending night meetings and travelling around for conferences or staying out late for office duties. Some men even get their egos bruised when they see their wives doing well or better than them in careers or finance. Some petty and bloated ego men will always do what they have to do to sabotage that. 

It gets far worse if the woman wants to start raising children, the woman must sacrifice at least two years of her life and abandon her career to raise a kid; multiply that by the number of kids the woman raises. She will definitely lag in her career even if she employs the services of maids and house helps. 

It is always difficult to see a wife who is combining both successfully; being successful in her career and also being a good wife/ good mother, especially at the budding stage but it is actually possible and doable. Maybe a study should be carried out on successful female CEOs of fortune 500 who are married and raising a good family home. They are the real MVPs and should be awarded. It is definitely not easy but at least they are doing it and they are an inspiration to millions of other women out there. 

This piece is written in solidarity with every career woman out there who has been doing her thing and killing it. If you do not want to get married for personal reasons or so you do not lose focus please do not succumb to societal pressure or feel like a failure because you refused to get married and you if want to get married I want you to know that is possible for you to be a successful career woman and still be a great mother and wife; Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is doing it, Michelle Obama is doing it, Chimanda Ngozi Adichie is doing it, Folorunsho Alakija is doing it, Ibikun Awosika is doing, Barr. Mrs Mfon Usoro is doing it, retired Lord justice Mary Odili is doing it and a whole lot of others. It is also a charge on men who are privileged to have career or purpose driven women as spouses. Having such a woman as a wife or partner is a rare and undeserving privilege. She needs your support and encouragement. You should be her cheerleader and do not cripple her vision. 

Most importantly, I want my daughters and every girl child out there to know that the sky is their limit in every chosen field of their endeavours and if they also choose to get married early, they can be both successful in their careers and be a good wife or a good mother. It is possible and doable.