In Praise of an Ethiopian woman
A heart-felt amen to this account of an Ethiopian woman!
When I first read it in a book, Contemporary Ethiopia, few weeks before Iwas struck by its lyrical and eloquent desriptions of what the author says are ‘beautiful specimen of feminity’ and how an Ethiopian woman is viewed by outsiders.
Now I am taking it out of the veiled pages of the book and put it online, hoping it would be an eye-opener to you as it was to me.
The author, David Talbot, an African-American who had been the Ethiopian Herald’s long serving editor in the 50’s and 60’s says his is only a simple observation and the subject is ‘an extensive and absorbing’ one which should engage the exclusive attention of someone better suited to the task.
Ethiopian women are for the most part very beautiful specimens of feminity as approached from the western standards.Thier average height is generally not tall, they vary in complexion from very bright to very dark color, and it is correct to say that for a color scheme, a gathering of Ethiopian women would not be a bit different to that of one in the sections of America predominantly Afro-Americans.In features, they are invariably of high forehead with noses varying from aquiline to flat, predominantly oval of face and most feminine in gait and physique.A recent visitor to the land of Queen of Sheba told me that he was really pleasantly surprised to see the Ethiopian women at a dinner given in his honor; how beautiful are they, and without “war paint!”They have lovely skins, probably attributable to thier food, periodic abstinence and the cilmate.
For facial expression these women are sources of excellent delight.It is known that so far as thier teeth are concerned, dentists do not reap a ready harvest.With generally white teeth, large luminous eyes of a rare liquid expression, plenty of strong hair, the woman’s smile is most bewitching.Very shy by tradition, in the presence of her male companion it makes him feel that he is master of all he surveys.It is probably true that most of the women of the leisure class of the outgoing generation, are more on the obese side, it not being unusual to see some of excessive avoirdupois.From what I have seen, at the present age, the emphasis is definately not on curves, but on lines, and the younger set is seeing to the fact that thier weight is kept within the limit of the current vogue.Ethiopian women, the majority of them, take care personally of thier beauty culture business.Their hair-do is very spectacular: and, lo, i have found some of the current fascinating styles in the United States, facsimiles of some of those worn in Addis Ababa by the Ethiopian well-dressed woman!
A large number of them, especially in Addis Ababa and the larger towns, prefer western dress.The middy blouse provides the uniforms of the girls in the girls schools or dresses made on the western order in drill and other materials.Ethiopian girl students are now permitted to travel to foreign countries for sudy and away from thier parents.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Ethiopian society is definately eastern in character.Women in general, therefore, are trained from their childhood to efface themselves in public in deference to their males.This has conditioned each to accept a lesser role in the scales of public mention.She therefore suffers a handicap in enjoying as freely as her sisters in the West the station of equal social and civic partnership.
December 19, 2006 at 1:40 pm
This is a crap.where does this man knows Ethiopian women? The truth is an Ethiopian woman is filthy stinking creature. Tried to hide her foul and polluting smell,
she make use of cosmetics and perfumes (all at the cost of men). She has no love
lost. Only dominance by being near and money matters. Women will jump sides at
the side of money and better fortune. Women is a spider web. MEN BETTER WATCHOUT
AND KEEP AWAYS. USE THEM AND GET AWAY. NO INVOLVEMENT OF SENTIMENTS PLEASE.
December 19, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Eyayu, Dumped again? Ayizoh.Atalekakis.It is not the end of the world.
Your problem is you always mess up with bitches.And you think all girls are like them.
Have respect for yourself and go after decent girls.And you would know what real girls are.
December 20, 2006 at 6:09 am
Ethiopian girls are indeed beautiful especially when the yardstick employed to measure beauty is physical attractiveness. Anything more than that is not her strong point. She thinks this gives her the right to put herself at the center of the universe.
She is little informed and her ability to take part in learned conversation is not much to admire.
she is not mentally disturbed but emotionally unstable.She cannot live happily with the mores and values traditional society imposes uopon her and she canot live without it.
December 20, 2006 at 10:31 am
We should be grateful to Arefaynie for this informmative essasy.This observation of our women( ‘the alluring brown ladies’
belongs to the author only. We have all our encounters and grudges about them that ,however , shouldn’t shadow our reason as they did Eyau’s. Why not we just say what we feel about them? Let’s be honest Ethiopian women are beautiful. They are also becoming beyond our reach. We are neither liberated nor affluent to control them. We the men couldn’t stride at their pace. Our grip is going loose; we are loosing control of them. And we are worried. Aren’t we?
December 21, 2006 at 6:18 am
Male or female, I don’t see any difference.We Abeshas have trivial mind. We occupy our minds with some inconsequential things like gossip and hearsay.Informed or not informed,we judge people by what they have rather than by who they are.
December 5, 2007 at 12:33 am
RE: “In praise of an Ethiopian women ”
The Author described the true Beauty and Essence of an Ethiopian women.
However individual character as well as personality should not affect the beauty of the true Ethiopian women described authenticially by the Author thus , should not discredit the Beauty and Essence of an Ethiopian women wihch will stand no matter who agrees or not that is the True Beauty of
Ethiopian women and what they are made of . The rest is just like any one else in the world you can not generalize the whole nations characterstic to either be great or vice versa.
January 29, 2008 at 4:25 am
Although I know that most people who will read my comment will not agree with me, I still want to pass out my thought about the Ethiopian beauty. To me beauty is more than any form of physical attraction. I believe that if beauty is only restricted to that, then they wont be anything more than lust between people and that would be the end of togetherness.
Anyway, my point is to ask everyone if u have noticed the change with most Ethiopian women lately? They seem to follow the cash than try to look into what someone has bring into a relationship as a person. This has, therefore,makes me wonder if this low self-esteem is really a sign of beauty.
If u wanna prove what I just wrote about, just go into any online dating site that ethiopian women post their profiles. There, finding some girl writing that she is looking for someone to take care of her is no more a surprise.
I am an Ethiopian woman myself and I only said what I said just because I wanted to make a point that we need to change cause i think that this change is the change that we all are looking for
in peace,
ambi
March 18, 2008 at 8:34 am
all women would normally look for a provider since society dictates tht the male is the bread winner of the house …so when u say abesha women the follow the cash..look at todays music and entertainment outlets ..even commercials…the female is in it for the money….and who other than a caucasian female is usually in the ad. As for beauty there defianatly gorgeous and beautiful ..me being ethiopian and surround by a lot of ethiopian women .. know that as a true tradtional value.. education is important which leads me to believe that u probably attract brainless women…and people educate yourself. its not queen of sheba its queen sheba…queen of sheba is used to detach her of her native homeland and make appear none abesha…and the egyptian pharoahs were from abyssinian decent and were black..as written in ancient roman scriptures
The Teacher
March 22, 2008 at 10:51 pm
i am sorry but i don’t get ur point…. the teacher?
March 22, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I don’t think that being raised in a patriarchal society would justify following the cash in terms of getting one self in a relationship. I totally don’t get what u were talking about the queen of Sheba. what about her?
March 23, 2008 at 11:55 pm
I love my ethiopian woman and hope everybody gets the chance to do so.She is a true work of art representing what a real ethiopian woman is.She is beautifull,open minded,has a big hart, has respect for others and she is all in all proud to be a woman and most of all an ethiopian.Besides, she constantly reminds me what she likes and hates about me,where she wants to be touched,kissed and carassed.Most of all, she screams my full name loud every time I make love to her.So what I’m saying is you have to be lucky to have found a good ethiopian woman
March 24, 2008 at 7:54 am
did u seriously just said that?…… abiy39
i would say that what u just wrote in there is just too much information taking into consideration that it is not an adult story telling site. what happened between u two should stay b/n u two.
March 26, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I’m sorry Ambi, I kind of got carried away.I did not mean to offend any body .I was a little emotional for I have a respect my woman…Sorry
April 2, 2008 at 2:46 pm
The consensus here that “our women have become beyond our reach”, not excluding Eyayu’s forceful exhortations, is correct. Ethiopian women are probably the most desired (and desirable) of all African women, with the possible exception of white southern Africans; in consequence of this, woman’s natural inclination to material comfort, and Ethiopia’s Addis’ relative affluence, Ethiopian women have become excessively urban and soullessly materialistic — just like women in every other affluent society/city. It’s the same pattern everywhere from America to China. Woman are supposed to want a provider, but her ‘liberation’ has abolished her share in the transaction — humility, care of the house, children — and replaced it with a one-way street leading to a miserable dead-end: satisfaction of her material wants with no payoff in sight, until the man is either broke or has worn out his sexual novelty, which, given female neurochemistry, is comparatively sooner than for the male. ‘Education’ is as much to blame for this state of affairs as affluence and pseudo-culture. You cannot educate a female without losing her from the race, from the genepool. Theorizing woman as educable was more disastrous even than letting her vote, for it foisted upon a being with one clear natural purpose an entirely foreign, life-denying role designed to compete with and ultimately destroy the influence of the male in society. So if Ethiopians want their women back, they’ll basically have to overthrow modernism and install a totalitarian, patriarchal regime — Shari’ah, in a word.
That said, Ethiopian women are truly some of the most aesthetically perfect on Earth.
April 2, 2008 at 3:20 pm
And no man should allow himself to think that he can dodge this trend, that he can find a woman who is ‘different’ — though he will find hundreds of women who like to say they are ‘different’, and are all the same kind of neurotic, empty, soul-sucking, money-grubbing banshee. That is indeed the most puzzling aspect of the modern female: her belief that she is not those things, and that it is “the male”, with his eternal instinct to rove and spread his seed, who is to blame for being mal baisée, when in fact it is a force, a cultural-historical trend quite beyond her control or intelligence which makes her disgruntled, self-centered and useless. Every female wilts before such descriptions, and either lashes out (ad homines directed at the male’s mother, his love life [which proves the point!], masturbation, or some such childish thing) or tells herself, assures herself, that she is “not that kind of girl”. Yet every Western woman has slept with the equivalent of two or three football teams by the time the “right one” comes along to “sweep her off her feet”, and every other female from the Latin American, to the African, to the Asian, and especially the Muslim, may be as pure as you please, but equally vapid (in the origin meaning of the word ‘in-nocent’
and with a truly repulsive and inhuman princess complex. In fine, there are no “good women” — or not nearly enough to satisfy all the good men left stranded by the enfranchisement (read: wholesale spoiling) of women.
April 8, 2008 at 8:59 pm
This is in response to the comment by Marshall Lentini.
“Ethiopian women have become excessively urban and soullessly materialistic — just like women in every other affluent society/city. It’s the same pattern everywhere from America to China. Woman are supposed to want a provider, but her ‘liberation’ has abolished her share in the transaction — humility, care of the house, children — and replaced it with a one-way street leading to a miserable dead-end: satisfaction of her material wants with no payoff in sight, until the man is either broke or has worn out his sexual novelty, which, given female neurochemistry, is comparatively sooner than for the male”
Education’ is as much to blame for this state of affairs as affluence and pseudo-culture. You cannot educate a female without losing her from the race, from the genepool. Theorizing woman as educable was more disastrous even than letting her vote, for it foisted upon a being with one clear natural purpose an entirely foreign, life-denying role designed to compete with and ultimately destroy the influence of the male in society. So if Ethiopians want their women back, they’ll basically have to overthrow modernism and install a totalitarian, patriarchal regime — Shari’ah, in a word.
“the modern female: her belief that she is not those things, and that it is “the male”, with his eternal instinct to rove and spread his seed, who is to blame for being mal baisée, when in fact it is a force, a cultural-historical trend quite beyond her control or intelligence which makes her disgruntled, self-centered and useless.”
Reading your comments makes me believe that they are still living within the time zone of 300 years back.
I can’t believe that you blame education for the present independence of women, a means that enables women to enjoy their human rights, the rights that they are entitled to just by a mere fact of being a human.
I am sorry to say this but I am guessing that you grew up in an abusive family or even grew up on the street with no sense of respect of any human being what so ever. I feel sorry for a woman for would be lured to be “your” woman. I bet that if you and I can compete on anything that requires skill and mental ability I would beat the hell out of you and I AM A WOMAN, AN ETHIOPIAN WOMAN.
It is also amazing that you even dared to say that women are “useless”. Well, I can tell you that, even a woman who is suppressed by a system set up by a man and who did not even make it to grade 1 is more useful to her country just because she is a WOMAN than u are. She is a leader, a mentor and most of all a mother, a sister, a friend a life partner whom I understand that you have never had one in ur miserable life.
About women sleeping with alot of men until they find the right one only to leave him for another man when they get tired of it, with how many women have u slept with so far or how many of ur male friends slept with different women and cheat on them? Well, u should know by now that, every one, including women have the right to make their own choices of a life partner or a boy friend and FYI, it is called the right to privacy.
And finally, just for your info, women are not a commodity and are not happened to be in a system set up by the MAN to be exploited just as it has been happening so far. WE, WOMAN are independent with the ability to live life on our own without ur “support”
I hope this will keep ur retarded brain busy for some time.
April 16, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Reading your comments makes me believe that they are still living within the time zone of 300 years back.
That’s probably true. Some men are throwbacks to their great-grandfathers.
I can’t believe that you blame education for the present independence of women,
I don’t: I blame men for the independence of women — because men gave it to them. I blame education, that is to say their enfrachisement as educable beings, for a good part of their post-feminine character.
I am sorry to say this but I am guessing that you grew up in an abusive family or even grew up on the street with no sense of respect of any human being what so ever.
Worse — an Italian family from New Yawk!
I feel sorry for a woman for would be lured to be “your” woman.
Obviously “feeling sorry” is your only means of defense. But don’t worry, most women are only stupid enough to be lured by negroes and crackheads; very seldom by misogynists.
I bet that if you and I can compete on anything that requires skill and mental ability I would beat the hell out of you and I AM A WOMAN, AN ETHIOPIAN WOMAN.
Oh yea? Show me your tits.
She is a leader, a mentor and most of all a mother, a sister, a friend a life partner
But that is precisely my point: hypercapitalism and the enfrachisement of woman have made her in many cases quite rabidly opposed to the very idea of being a mother — and to murder countless millions of nascent human lives by abortion. Where does that fit into your rosy paean?
About women sleeping with alot of men until they find the right one only to leave him for another man when they get tired of it, with how many women have u slept with so far or how many of ur male friends slept with different women and cheat on them?
Less than you’d like to believe, I’m sure. But in any case, women used to be respectable; now they believe sleeping with entire football teams of men — imitating a bogus idea of male behavior set up by feminism — is the way to sort through all the “pigs” and “weirdos” and “creeps” and “losers”. Actually, they’re pigs themselves and revel in the mud of licentious behavior; they just can’t admit it to themselves.
Well, u should know by now that, every one, including women have the right to make their own choices of a life partner or a boy friend and FYI, it is called the right to privacy.
You’re utterly confused, of course, but allow me to correct you: Being a slut is not the same as finding a life partner, both of which are not the right to privacy. You need to keep your ideas straight, sista. But heeeeyy, if “independence” is all about going to bars to drink, flash your boobies and pick up strange men until you finally find one you can tolerate the morning after, so be it! and I am the primitive, the brute, the barbarian!
And finally, just for your info, women are not a commodity
Of course they are, have ever been, and shall always be — whether you like it or not. We wouldn’t be here discussing it if woman weren’t still fundamentally an article of commerce. Some women do still make the heinous mistake of, you know, finding a real mate and procreating before their “career” whisks them off into the absolutely fabulous world of urban wealth & renown.
WE, WOMAN are independent with the ability to live life on our own without ur “support”
You can use tags to make the word “woman” even bigger, you know — if it makes you feel more assertive.
I hope this will keep ur retarded brain busy for some time.
Approximately four minutes, brown sugah!
April 27, 2008 at 4:37 am
To M.Lentini: now i know that u and ur people in ur circle merely believe that a woman is sex object. the thing is that, if u are as educated as I think u are, u already know by now that the world is not for, but rather against you. And I am not surprised by ur previous comment that u are not able to go out with a woman cause any woman, including myself have to be crazy enough to even think about going out with u.
May 7, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I have to say - I am quite shocked by what some people left here.
As a male it took me some time (years and years to be honest) until I learned that women are neither mean nor bitches, they are - viewed from a male perspective - just one thing: different. And I am sure women will notice the same thing about men. They use a different language, they are mostly interested in different things - but they are wonderful creatures. I absolutely agree with Ambi in most of her points.
But seeing that difference doesn’t necessarily mean that I cannot respect a woman. I will have to learn her language if I want to stay with her, as she has to learn my (male) language. Otherwise we will see only misunderstandings after a while, and who needs that?
What is love anyway? Some people seem to take their own opinion on that for granted. When wishes start to be thought of only as demands there is seriously something going wrong. Which means, Mr. Lentini, everybody has to think about the wishes of the other one. If I am sure, it will give me a hard time to fulfill the wishes of my woman, I shouldn’t stay with her. Wrong one. It is maybe sad (no romanticism to be found here), but it is as simple as that.
And to add a comment to the original text: yes I agree, many ethiopian women are very, very beautiful.
May 21, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I have been in heartsick admiration of Ethiopian women since 1966; there is something beyond special in their unique combination of skin, eyes, mouths and bone structure….a photographer’s dream come true and any man’s fantasy for life.