Men In The Ghanaian Takes Undue Advantage Of Their Female Counterparts – iOna Reine.
iOna Reine, a Ghanaian singer born Mercy Onuawunto Sam has for the first time opened up publicly about the dark side of being a female musician in Ghana. The singer in an interview via phone call revealed to Atanga Alex of Yem FM in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga discloses that women sell their craft by packaging themselves sexily.
People over there look beyond the sexy aspect of them and even consider it as part of their craft. She however lamented that in our part of the world, when a lady tries being sexy in other to push her craft forward, she is never supported but only perceived as a sex object.
She noted that when female musicians meet people to help them project their talent to the outside world, the only thing they ask of first is sex. She claimed this is the reason most of the major shows across the country are being headlined by men and not women.
She revealed that your career might be stagnant if you are not ready to sleep with these men and most female musicians who end up sleeping with them don’t even get what they want and this makes the men take undue Advantage of these poor female musicians.
“Every favor, they will want to sleep with you. So if you are not ready to be sleeping around, it means that you are going to be a bit stagnant. Even if you allow them to sleep with you, sometimes people even sleep with you and they will not help. The men take undue advantage of the women”, she bemoaned.
iOna Reine is of the view that women in the Ghanaian music scene can only rub shoulders with men if the populace desists from perceiving women as sex objects and recognize them as artists capable of performing wonders.
She stated that it is very easy and convenient to sell a female artist much more than a male but what draws the females backward is the stereotyping of the masses about them.
“Look at her as an artist and not a sexual object. The day we stop seeing women as something just for sex and can be used for something business-wise, it will help all of us. It is easier to sell a woman than to sell a man. It is so easy to sell a female artist because you can just brand her well, whatever necessary training she needs to go through for her voice to be at a certain level, and when a woman performs people enjoy it because the women have something that the men don’t have”, she claimed.
iOna Reine is currently the only midwife in the Ghana music industry and she has always been clear about her passion for music and how she intends to spread positivity across the globe through her music.