As the world celebrates the International Women’s Day, women in different part of the world would be counting the cost. Without any doubt, the fortunes of women be it in Asia, Europe, or the Americas and certainly in Africa has changed within the past few decades. The last two may have been quite significant though. Having said that, it is important to accept bluntly that women still deserve a much more better deal comparable to men.
In Africa, Nigeria surprisingly has had a long history and tradition of women playing significant roles in shaping premodern Nigeria societies. In the southern part of the country, with particular emphasis in the western region, women sat as part of the ruling council offering valued advice to the Obas (kings), while they were not excluded from policy making. Societal commerce and industry had nominal heads as women, the Iyalode or Iya-Oloja. These women titleholders were quite wealthy and wielded additional political leverage.
In the core north before the of the advent of new rulers of Fulani extraction, women where in charge of some of the Hausa states. Queen Amina of Zauzau (Zaria) for instance, reigned and ruled and even went to war extending the frontiers of her empire. When the British colonialists arrived on the scene, they had to contend with structures in place, which recognised women as formidable stakeholders in their new sphere of influence. Not so much of a surprise, women played significant roles in ending colonialism in Nigeria.
With such momentum, the end of colonialism exposed the emergence of a time capsule as it affected the rights of women. In the southern part of Nigeria, the new political class raised the bar of patriarchy with the way politics was practiced, where it seemed women only existed but not necessarily to be heard. In the core north, the new emirates whitewashed the roles that women played proudly in the past and replaced them with the supposed new responsibilities of women under the new religion of the emirs. While in the south, education may have been recognised as a social mobility enabler, misogynistic practices of placing the male child above the female were not far from the surface.
The reinforcement of patriarchy and misogyny in Nigeria after independence show the lack of political will to recognise the importance of gender equality, with many underlying rights waiting to be addressed. In recent years, Nigeria has had some women in leadership positions occupying global roles, it still does not reflect a widespread of women being active in areas of socio political and economic activities. The political environment is simply hostile for women to thrive.
The reaction to this conundrum is the rejection of the millennials of what they see as an outdated statuesque. They now constitute a co-op of militant feminism. Known as the collective or the coven, these group of young female activists are not only displeased with the plight of women’s rights, but they are also actually very angry and may have inadvertently unleashed a gender war with society at large. The launching pad of attacks is the social media. Such militancy may hold sway in the liberal west but does not have the chance of creating the necessary impact because of its perceived vitriolic attacks cum advocacy.
The older generation of feminists-built alliances with progressive members of the enemy camp and were able to create consensus of opinions. While the coven’s approach of advocacy may be rash and probably unconducive to a rather conservative society like Nigeria, the urgency required to dealing with far-reaching issues which affects the girl child and by extension women in the country cannot and should not be glossed over.
Nigerians were once tagged as the happiest people on earth, but with more than half of 70% of the population being young women and unhappy with their situation in society, their male counterparts have a high chance of bearing the brunt of this built-up anger. The politicians are thus better placed, to do the maths and hopefully act.
© Copyright, Olugbenga Adebanjo
Ojuriblog 