Just a few week after Mr. President announced the country COVID-19 shutdown, 1 I became knowledgeable of how fabled and carcinogenic the belief that "girls mature faster." A higher school girl-looking bright in her clean jacket and matching longer pants-had walked past me and a host of other people standing in line behind me, waiting to collect their COVID-19 poverty award from the Post Office. I turned as a man in the back tapped my head. He grinned and expressed his surprise at how "big" the teenager's vagina was bulging through the entire even.

I was silent with disdain. How had a mature person seem at a woman in that manner?

A woman is a lady, whether or not she is medically brilliant. And thus young women are left stranded, pitted with poor younger males who become dying people that terrorize them for their carcasses. This is the same gap where younger kids are sucked into the poverty scourge. And this myth, which claims that ladies can grow more quickly, mocks this fact. The misconception, I can't help but think, forms the heart and soul of places where adolescent girls are also sold off into baby marriages, where adolescent boys become desensitized to this brutality and get men who follow in those footsteps when they have daughters or decide to take wives. No matter how loudly young girls scream for attention, the myth is an abyss of exploitation into which they fall.

Girls are taught what's right and what's wrong by families who dedicate themselves to doing so. Very seldom do girls enjoy a carefree childhood that is uninterrupted by the pressure that comes with the force of rushing them into adult responsibilities. focusing on their eyes so they can decide what kind of clothing to wear would make them appear "prostitute-ish." Many girls from a young age are burdened by the constant game of survival, including cooking, cleaning, washing, and minding any younger ( and older ) siblings, outstanding schoolwork, and the constant game of survival. Honing their lips so they'll know how to talk "like a lady".

We overteach girls to make them responsible women, not realizing the development of boys as a result. We teach girls what boys should be taught in the first place and ignore boys. Girls are taught to do things not to culture them into mindful and accountable people, but simply because they are female.

Although I can't speak for other cultures or worlds, I have seen this frequently in our cultures as Black people. I've found the principle to be widely used in other African nations as well, not just on a personal level as a Zulu person. I've seen it in how my Mozambican neighbors made their daughter cook every single meal, despite her brother being her age and just as capable.