WOMEN DO NOT AND SHOULD NOT GET A PASS

After writing my previous blogpost on different types of Ethiopian women online, I was a little shocked by a couple of negative comments it received on Facebook. A few of my fellow Ethiopian women were very offended and I quote: ‘of my attempt to categorize the complexity of an Ethiopian woman’. Moreover they pretty much trashed my blogging and writing skills and equated me to a child.

Ouch.

No really, oouuch! I was totes discouraged to blog for like a couple days ;). I was even fighting the urge to defend myself on the comments, but then decided against it, as luckily most people did get the joke, regardless if they thought it was funny or not. But in case in you didn’t get it, and you were offended, it seriously was a joke and it was never my intention to offend anybody.

But back to the criticism, some people were asking why I didn’t include the countless intelligent and professional working Ethiopian women in my post. Or why my categories had so shallow descriptions of Ethiopian women. Well, honestly I found my humor a bit stretched on these women. I mean how funny is a caption with ‘she reads books and is an accomplished lawyer, doctor or an amazing mom’?

My original list had twelve types, but I decided to edit it down. I mean honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to categorize every single type of Ethiopian woman online, the list would be endless and not fitting to a 200 word blogpost. And again, this post was written as a joke. Even if you don’t consider it funny, calling it offensive to me is a tad dramatic.

I myself, as a feminist, somewhat funny and a totally badass Ethiopian woman, truly believe in the equality of women and men. And I mean equality in every possible sense, including comedy. I believe Ethiopian women do not and should not get a pass in comedy. How equal would that be? Therefore, I see no problem of me writing a post on different stereotypes of Ethiopian women online.

All of the categories were inspired by real social media profiles with the added influence of Ethiopian movies and television and other random stuff online.

I want to urge you to look at any comedic movies, YouTube videos, vines and music videos that play on stereotypes of Ethiopians. Many of them make fun of stereotypes of Ethiopian women all the time. Is that wrong and offensive too? Where do you draw the line? Or if you consider them offensive too, how about comedy or sarcasm in general, it usually always centers around making fun of an individual or a group of individuals. Many of us watch comedy movies and television from across the world. I chose to blog about Ethiopians, because I am Ethiopian. It would be totally weird and a bit racist if I wrote and joked about Jewish, Chinese or African-American women. As I am not part of those sets of individuals. But that doesn’t stop me at laughing at Tina Fey’s (who btw is a badass feminist comedian) and Kevin Hart’s movies. So as an Ethiopian woman, I reserve the right to poke fun of stereotypes of Ethiopians.

I understand, my comedic skills might not be perfect nor funny to everyone and I might not be a professional writer, or comedian. I am simply a woman who wrote her first blogpost.

Anyways I would like to leave you with some videos and characters that I consider funny and you might possibly find them offensive. They also in part inspired my original post.

Sh*t Ethiopian girls say Part 1 (አማርኛ)

Sh*t Habesha Girls Say

Sh*t Ethiopian people say

Sh*t Black Girls Say

Sh*t Natural Hair Girls Say

Sara and Hawi from Gorebetamochu

Any video by Prinssi Jusuf

And all the countless funny habesha vines.

Rebekah D.

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