I didn’t realize I was a feminist till I hit my late twenties.
Not that I didn’t know the word itself, but I’d never seen anything ‘feminine’ about myself, and I never thought men were trying to oppress me, so why should I want to fight something called the patriarchy?
Up till that point I had no words to describe that frustration I felt whenever I was told I couldn’t do certain things simply because I am a ‘girl’. I couldn’t sit in a certain fashion, talk too loudly, pick my nose in public, scratch that itch eating ay at my legs, wear certain things to certain places simply because it is ‘unladylike’.
My question usually is … who made you the master of ‘lady?’ and what makes you think I want to be a ‘lady’?
In my early teens, I was ‘allowed’ to run wild, by the ‘guardians of our morals’, because it was still okay. I even got an encouraging smile or two, being a flat chested tomboy was soo … cute.
But.
There was no word for a woman in her early twenties, with a propensity for wearing trousers and weird haircuts, who had a string of lovers and more male friends than was permissible … well, except for ‘slut’.
Then I became a single parent, the society I grew up in breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Maybe her head will settle into one place now that she’s in trouble.”
“Maybe she won’t, look at her lineage, a long line of wild women who live by their own rules, I doubt she ever will.”
But the ‘words of wisdom’ never ceased coming.
The moral guardians of our society were afraid their daughters will somehow sip from my cup and become infected with my psychosis, they watched closely. Theirs are the eyes that saw at midnight, the ones feeding off the blood of innocent ones while I slip out of my home to party hard. They knew I was trouble.
Or maybe I should have started this note from a conversation held with Temitayo Amogunla, (nee Olofinlua) who came visiting with her baby a few months ago. She complained bitterly about the women who practically stampeded her, in a bid to bully her out of strapping her baby to her chest, instead of 'backing' him, the ‘traditional’ way – secured to the back with a wrapper and a smaller scarf called ‘oja’.
A few months later, Jumoke Verissimo experienced the same angry, almost mob-like, reaction from strangers, who felt they had a right to dictate how she should carry her baby, simply because they were … older females.
That was when I told Jumoke something I’d known since the day the word ‘feminism’ crept into my dictionary, that women are the patriarchs.
Yes, the ‘patriarchy’ inherently is a male dominated order, but I put it to you that women are the guardians, the guardians of the rules, the guardians of our morals, the guardians of what to do, what not to do, how to be a lady, why you have to stay married to your abusive husband, why you have to be married at all.
I even dare say women made some, if not all of these rules.
The evidence is there, in the market places, where real, not virtual, affectations are at play. Those women, who plant, reap and sell you the tomatoes, onions and what-nots you use in your meals. The pepper sellers, those whom city dwellers often think of in terms of ‘poor, downtrodden things’. They are not 'poor' or 'downtrodden', they have studied the patriarchal system and they use it.
They use it to bully you into buying their stuff more expensively than you normally would because your skirt is not long enough, your make up is too much, they talk rudely to you when you strap your baby to your chest, because they have the right to shame you on behalf of the men.
Some hair splitters might say women in the north do not go to the market. But who whispers guilt inducing sweet-nothings in the mai-gida’s ears at night? Definitely not his male lovers!
I’ve watched these women operate, on their daughters and other women.
But wait ... it's not only the pepper sellers who go out of their way to make you feel the pain of the patriarchy as you conduct your daily business.
Let's talk about the gadget wielding generation of patriarchs with blood red nails. Go online and check out those horrible pictures of women beaten black and blue, their clothes torn off, with the caption ‘woman caught stealing pepper’ and check out the vituperation, now check the list of names, you’ll notice that more comments will come from the women, the worst comments come from the women.
Our psyche has been assaulted for so long that we’ve become the abusers in our own tales of woe. We perpetuate the abuse, the reign of the dictators.
Our places of religion are filled with women, have you ever wondered why so few of them own private jets?
Who are the people responsible for shaving off the hair of women who have lost their husbands, who are those that force feed them with water taken from the bath of the dead body, who forces them to wail and gnash their teeth and declaim their innocence of the murder of the dead husband?
Who knows the juiciest gossips about the sex life of other women and shares it gleefully?
Who tells you it’s a thing of shame to tell anybody you’ve been raped?
Who teaches their daughters to cook while their sons play out in the sun?
Who tells you that the course you’re about to take is too ‘masculine’ that you should go for a more ‘feminine’ course … like … literature?
Who determines what is ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ in the society?
Who birthed these ‘patriarchs’?
What would it take to end rape in Nigeria? A simple case of teaching our sons that there is no difference between men and women, that women deserve to be treated equally, with respect, that every woman, no matter her sex, deserves to be respected.
Where else in the world would a Chief Judge (male) get invited to an all female event (made up of judges) and pronounce that ‘rape is self-inflicted’ and GET AWAY WITH IT!(check out my blog on rape here
)
Where else in the world but in Nigeria, where the women have taken up arms for the patriarchy, a country where an elected, sitting, female, Senator goes into the Upper House and pushes a legislature concerning the length of women’s dresses through. Where a child of ten, as long as she is married, is constitutionally recognized as an adult and when people protested about the fact that a child of ten should NOT be married, some women in the House of Assembly (or is it Reps) ‘refrained’ from voting? Where women are arrested for 'prostituting', simply because they do not have a ‘male’ partner with them when they go out during certain hours of the day.
When will we finally admit to ourselves that we appear to be our own patriarchs? We the prisoners are now guarding the prisons, while the guards are having the time of their lives.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to kick off women from my Face Book wall or blocked them from my twitter account because of the kind of anti-women stance they take.
Women tell other women they are beautiful, well except for the fact that you’re not wearing these Peruvian weaves, or have your hair ‘done’ naturally, or look this thin, or have your stomach this flat or your skin this light, this dark, your yansh … this big!
When will we finally admit to ourselves that the picture of that hardworking woman, with a baby strapped to her back, a pestle in hand and a determined frown on her face is our Mother Africa, our all consuming patriarch? When will we stop treating one another as present or non-existent sexual appendages, look one another in the eye, and admit that we are all simply … human.
Words … fail … me.
.jpg)
