Are Women Less Human?
Women are often treated as less human. It’s an ugly sentence, but it survives because it is lived.
Power, when it seeks the cheapest proof of itself, often reaches for the most vulnerable target, and too often, that target is a woman. In homes, on the streets, in boardrooms, and in places of worship, dominance is rehearsed on her body, her voice, and her choices. The methods differ, but the message is the same: “You are less.”
And the more troubling part is that this message does not come from a single source. It comes from many, sometimes crowned in authority. Religion has been used to justify silence, possession, submission, and violation. Culture romanticises endurance while normalising harm. Patriarchy builds structures that reward control and denial. Distorted masculinity confuses power with possession and abusive dominance. Then we have the extremes, flooding in as rape, child marriage, trafficking, violence, and other clear, brutal expressions of the same underlying belief: “This gender is less.”
Distorted masculinity confuses power with possession and abusive dominance.
Even more unsettling is how the idea loops back on itself. Some women, shaped by the very system that diminishes them, begin and continue to perform it, reducing themselves to objects, measuring their worth by desirability, and reinforcing the gaze that dehumanises them. Not because they are lesser, but because they have been taught, repeatedly, to see themselves that way.
Now, the uncomfortable question is: Does the world really see women as secondary, less human, and expendable?
I don’t buy that.
Women are the womb that saves the world from many a tomb, the force that keeps endings from having the final word.
I believe women are central to humanity, not an afterthought.
Women are the flowers of the earth, without whom humanity would fade far faster than it dares admit. They’re not fragile ornaments, but living essentials.
Women in humanity are like queens among the bees, central, generative, and quietly holding systems together.
I see women as both the honey-makers and the honey of humanity, the creators of value and the value itself.
I see women as the fragrance of humanity, the presence that gives life its depth, its meaning, and its memory.
Women are the womb that saves the world from many a tomb, the force that keeps endings from having the final word.
These are not poetic exaggerations. No, they are honest recognitions.
If humanity has any claim to strength, that strength should first show up as protection, dignity, and opportunity for women, not as control, and definitely not as harm. Strength that crushes women is not strength, but failure with muscles.
I see women as essential, not ornamental; as contributors, not commodities; and as fully, equally, and unquestionably human.
But the world often behaves as though the opposite is true. As though women are meant to be stepped on, managed, corrected, owned, violated, and traded at will.
So the question lingers, sharp, necessary, and urgent: Are women less human?
Or is it that humanity has failed to be fully human in how it treats women?
- By Constant Ngozi Ozurumba, Founder, ManAnew Life Empowerment Foundation
