Former beauty queen/actress Regina Askia Williams wrote an interesting piece about the Nigerian
woman and the societal pressures and demands placed on her and shared it on her Facebook
page. It's an interesting
read. Find it below...
I just read a social media fight between two people I know and I chuckle
to myself because my friend was blowing some hot words there - she was
really vexed. Reading through the literary missiles, a few questions
came to mind. Why is it that, generally when Nigerians fight their
profanity centers around a woman's marital status, her age and to top
off the insults, her private parts? Are these the yardsticks that we
measure our women by? The marital status thing. Does it mean when a
woman is not married she has no identity, she is less of a person or
what? For a Nigerian woman to get any type of respect there has to be a
man in the picture in what ever capacity? So it does not matter if you
are wife number 6 at least you are wife? There is a vulgar saying that
goes "Toto wey nobody get, na everybody get am". For real? That pretty
much means that a woman unattached is nothing but a mobile body part
that anyone can do anything to or with.....chaaii!!
And so begins the
race where mothers groom and condition their daughters to believe that
their ultimate duty on Gods earth is to "find a man and born for am". I
have often listened to educated folks down so much on women with
comments like "They should have no say, after all they are going to get
married off", Women think with their butts not their heads and my
respect meter for them swings all the way dooownnn!! When we have more
respect for our women we will begin to do better as a society. If you
want to know the quality of men in any society look at how the women of
that society are being treated. Of course its not all Nigerians but
there's too many with this notion and something must be said.
The
age factor. - Another sexist point of view. With notion of the one goal
she must accomplish , the female now believes young and juicy is
preference especially if you are at the other side of the biological
clock and still have not found a man. So some of my soul sisters have
designed a calibration where at 30. birthdays are celebrated every 3
years and at 40 every 4 years. Meaning if you are 30 you will turn 31
after 3 years ......so instead of kicking the other side of 40s with me
my friends are mostly still 38. Where we could have fabulous and very
accomplished women, celebrating milestones, sharing wisdom of lessons
learned over the years, we have we see strong women dumbing down,
hiding behind numbers, and an arsenal of paraphernalia that will ensure
they don't get old. Look at any photographs of big chicks at any event,
we all look bothered. Why? Shoes are biting, wigs are squeezing, body
magic trying to snuff out the last breath. Sometimes we are dropping
body parts, nails dropping , eye lashes hanging........Lord have mercy.
Check out the Louboutins, Louis Vuittons, Micheal Kors, name them, all in
competition with the other as we live out social constructs designed to
forever keep us mentally emotionally and even physically
impoverished (How? Story for another day). We need to love and accept
ourselves.
Finally, the woman's private parts. The immediate way to
gauge a persons mental quality is how he talks about a woman. It has
nothing to with swag, bragado or just being a bad boy, a man who refers
to a woman as a body part is quite simply an iIDIOT no if , ands, or
buts, just keep it moving. I find it very disturbing that of the myriad
of problems in Nigeria, there recently was a move to put in the
constitution the legality of underage marriage as opposed to making laws
against pedophiles. Its disturbing that what an individual decides to
do with their private parts became a matter of national debate and
outcry but HIV, malaria, food shortage and Ebola (currently knocking on
our doors) are decimating the populace. These attitudes and perceptions
of put out or shut up, money for hand back for ground are slowly
turning our princess daughters into sex slaves, our turning our sisters
and mothers into glorified prostitutes. If you have ever watched a pack
of animals - you notice that they eat, fight, mate and sleep. The more
highly evolved the animal in question the more organized their
activities and interactions with group members. If this is our national
psyche, then the women of Nigeria have a long road to walk because we
must declare this consciousness unacceptable. This is not who we are
and we can do better. We must point our daughters towards higher ideals
and goals. We need a mind reorientation and perception which must begin
with an honest look at the person in the mirror. Our men must once again
learn to respect womanhood. Merit ought to take its place once again.
Lets us as a people rise again. Where do we start??
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