When you're in a hurry but meet a feminist on the road

If there is one worrying thing in this country besides our state of preparedness for the coming general elections, it’s the aggressive nature of female drivers on our roads. I think we have preached to our women far too long that for them to half achieve what a man can achieve, they must work twice as hard. Unfortunately, they have taken that mantra to the highway. The results? Most women drivers on our roads are such obstinate motorists; it is as heart-breaking as it’s amusing.

I do not know who cheated women that when you are on the road, you must never cede ground. Gosh! Ladies, do you have to bring battle of the sexes on the road? My goodness! Look, women want to fight men in the bedroom, in the boardrooms and even on the highways.

The government agency charged with road safety needs to come up with a programme specifically tailored for our female drivers in order to inculcate the ethos of road courtesy. They might call it Female Freedom, girl power-steering or even Femotorist. I really don’t care what they call it. But I do know and care about one thing; women need to go easy on the road.

Someone needs to inform our women that they are very lucky our laws allow them to pick car keys and insert in the ignition and drive off. There are women in certain parts of this world, especially in parts of middle east who are not that lucky.

A woman would rather scratch your bumper than give you way. She would rather hit you, spend the next three hours trying to sort the mess while she calls everyone to the scene; her husband, her brother, her workmates or even her pastor!

All this time she will not spare you too. She will call you -- of course, not on the phone -- names some that even us #TeamCrazyMonday can’t contemplate sending to printing press. Yes, it gets that crazy.

Granted, we have been told that it is a man’s world. But this is not good reason to have the women drive like the men shouldn’t be on that road. Remember we too pay taxes and we have as much right to be on the road just like the women.

Women must arise and conquer the myopic belief that if she gives way to a male motorist, then that amounts to further domination and disfranchisement of the entire female species. The little squabbles that most women are keen to start with their male counterparts on the road are similar to the sibling wars that we had when growing up while fighting for toys.

Our women must have a bigger cause to fight for, like promotion of green energy, fighting to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation, wife battering or suffering of the weak in the society.

Fighting over an inch of public road, and it just takes a matter of seconds whether you go first or second is not really worth a fight of a successive businesswoman or the corporate type keen to break the glass ceiling. If indeed women believe and subscribe to the equality gospel that they have been preaching to us for decades now; they should be on the front pedal demonstrating to us that they can ‘live’ with men on the road without feeling subservient.

My call to action to our women on the road is to observe the Highway Code while on the road; and they should remember that our traffic rules are gender insensitive because anyone behind the steering wheel is a motorist regardless of the anatomy below the waist belt!