Rules That Don’t Raise Good Daughters

My niece was just fifteen, and already the full weight of morality, legality, and reputation had been dropped on her shoulders. The boy who made that comment? He never missed school. No lectures were aimed at him. No rules rewritten to address his behavior.

That’s how it works. The rules are rarely about protecting girls, they’re about controlling them.

We raise daughters in contradiction: Be quiet but confident. Be smart but not outspoken. Be pure but attractive. Be strong but obedient. And if they step outside those invisible lines, if they get pregnant, speak up, or demand more, they’re punished. By culture. By family. And, too often, by the law.

1. “Good daughters don’t get pregnant.”

This isn’t a rule. It’s a loaded threat. It erases context. It ignores consent, rape, and the complexities of trauma and health. It pretends girls get pregnant alone.

In many African countries, including mine, abortion remains criminalized except in the narrowest of cases. Meanwhile, sexual violence is underreported and rarely prosecuted. So what happens? We fail our daughters twice: when they’re harmed, and again when they seek care.

A good daughter has the right to make choices about her body, without being policed by men, religion, or the state.

2. “She should’ve kept her legs closed.”

That phrase echoes in WhatsApp chats, at family dinners, and in courtrooms. It places morality between a girl’s legs, not in our collective behavior.

But no one says “he should’ve kept his pants on.” No boy is jailed for causing a pregnancy. No one holds his future hostage in the name of “purity.”

If responsibility is truly shared, then so must be accountability. Anything less is abuse disguised as tradition.

3. “Abortion is murder.”

This soundbite anchors the pro-life narrative. But it’s a lazy argument, one that erases people, trauma, and context.

If abortion is murder, what do we call a government that forces a 14-year-old to carry her rapist’s child? What do we call a society where a girl bleeds out in shame because a back-alley procedure was her only option?

Morality must never be louder than mercy. Rights should not be dictated by fear.

4. “We need to protect our daughters.”

No, we need to respect them. Protection without autonomy is just another form of imprisonment. You can’t claim to love your daughter while denying her the right to live fully, think freely, and choose safely.

I want to raise daughters who are not punished for surviving. Who don’t carry trauma as their only inheritance.

We raise strong daughters by trusting them, not by trapping them.

As a man, I support the right to choose, not because I want girls to have abortions, but because I want them to have a choice. Because the world demands relentless discipline from girls and almost no accountability from boys. Because legality without justice is just cruelty with a badge.

I’ve seen too many girls fall through the cracks of moral codes and legal contradictions, laws that call themselves “pro-life” while crushing the living.

To lawmakers, to parents, and to those who still choose silence:

You can’t raise good daughters by punishing them for being human. You can’t claim to protect life while dismantling the lives already here.

If we want our daughters to thrive, not just survive, we need fewer sermons and more freedom. Less shame, and more dignity.

Raise daughters who are unafraid of their bodies. Raise sons who know they are not entitled to them. And raise a society where choice is not a crime, but a right.