FEMINISM: A WAR AGAINST MEN?
Yusuff Uthman Adekola (Y.U.A.)
Some voices have been heard and have, as time keeps passing by, gone into silence. Slew of issues, as well, have been raised and subsequently dumped in the bin, owing to the lack of the spirit of commitment. There have been many causes fought only to be eventually forgotten. However, it eminently gets one flabbergasted that there is a seemingly ever-thriving fight – amongst others which have either died down or have been forgotten—that keeps waxing as each dawn and dusk goes by. This fight remains resilient, perhaps, because of the intrinsic nagging and fussy nature of some proponents of it. The feminist cause remains unbending as the feminists do not cease to recruit more and more females into the scope of their thoughts.
The feminist theory certainly did not just surface like a lightning. It of course came about as an offshoot to certain women’s and some men’s laudable stand against the female gender discrimination and victimisation years past. These preceding waves of feminists have apparently made tremendous achievements. They have been able to make come through, the women’s suffrage, equal rights to work, to assume public and political offices, to property, to education, and so forth. Again, they have been able to efface, to a creditable extent, sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence amongst other baleful acts of violence.
Nonetheless, the feminist movement is not without divisions of varying magnitudes of doggedness and aims. There are the liberal feminists who make do with the law as a tool for getting their aims accomplished. There are also the radical feminists who—as suggested by the name—are usually extreme in their approach as they are even at times tagged ‘anti-men’. There was a case where this faction of feminists sought the help of scientists in providing machines that would produce children without necessarily involving the womb or the need for a man, so that they could be ultimately independent of men. Another feminist type is that of the social feminists whose aims are targeted at having equal economic and social class. There are other kinds of feminists but, all in all, the radical feminists seem to be the commonest in this contemporary time, especially as perceptible from the current goings-on.
Gradually, the word ‘feminism’ –it seems—is dominating the world’s lexicon of words, especially in Nigeria and Africa at large. All over the internet—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth—, in day-to-day conversations, classrooms, articles and in the media, the word, feminism is what is usually said, written, heard or read. Almost any human possessing whatever physical features that suggest who a woman or lady is, now claims to be a feminist albeit not knowing what the term itself connotes. Of recent many who claim being feminists – radical feminists – believe all they need do is do away with men as they are believed to be ‘trash’. This is what has been trending these few days especially on Facebook. Yes, some so-called fourth-wave feminists otherwise called internet feminists write disparaging and vilifying things about men, as if only they (men) are guilty of violence or sexism. If feminism is all about war against the male gender, then, it is utterly pitiable that this so-called radicalness is none but sheer ludicrous rascality, for this amounts to nothing but absolute misandry at its zenith.
There Is no gainsaying the fact that women, just as men, should be entitled to political, economic, personal and social rights which would engender equity, justice and fairness. It is nevertheless germane to note that men and women can indisputably never be equal. If anybody tries balancing the scale between these two obviously dissimilar genders, there would surely be a problem as that would only be tantamount to a fight against nature which ultimately means a fight against the Divine (in the case of non-atheists). Again, culture and societal reasons aside, the male gender is usually naturally above the female gender, even by merely considering their distinctive anatomy as well as their varying physical strengths. Why then is the need to fight for equality rather than equity? If nature herself has set a gap between what men and women are capable of, why then should we be lost in the love of beating up a dead horse? On the whole, equity can surely be realised but never equality.
Without a shadow of a doubt, there are a countless number of men who, evidently by their actions are uncultured animals only being quarantined in the human skin. Now, the prompted questions here are these: are men only the human folk engaging in the so much disavowed psychopathic violence permeating every North, South, East and West? Are men not also being raped to death by women? Are they not also subjected to domestic violence or murder in the hands of their wives? Do we not hear of, read about or even witness tender babies or infants being dumped on wastelands as though they were a lifeless insignificant tissue paper? Are there not cases of incessant abortion and even the legalisation of this murderous cum suicidal act by these so-called feminists? If women are also not sacrosanct of these gross savageries, then, calling men ‘trash’ only brings to the fore the fact that some erring women themselves are also ‘garbage’ as a virtual friend of mine did say.
Progressing further, it is uncalled for and, as well, disheartening that this once good cause is now steadily getting blotted like an oil-stained white fabric. The cause now seems to be crossing the separating borders between the commendable and the reproachable. Some group of overzealous feminists are now set to alter the Divine Books, forgetting about the forsaken rebellious Satan. How utterly audacious and brazen it is that even God himself is challenged. Some have requested that the God-referent pronoun ‘He’ be abolished for it is held that it discriminates against the female gender. Perhaps, the naturally ingrained weakness of humans is being ascribed to the Infallible Being, due to their success of eventually stopping the general use of ‘he’ rather than ‘he/she’ for both gender, in the English Concord. Let us not allow our wants or needs debase us into becoming blind bats and hence making us trespass what ought not be.
More so, the truth of certain aspects of African and, more precisely, Nigerian culture being uncouth and gender-biased cannot be denied; but then, not all of these cultural practices can be justifiably revoked. Apparently, a great deal of Nigerian tribes subject women to marital victimisation, amongst other forms of barbarisms. Many a time are widowers forcefully made to drink waters used in bathing the corpses of their dead husbands, having the hairs on their heads shaven or married off to the brothers of their late husbands; and whatever property or possession left by the deceased is avariciously but insidiously confiscated by the tortoise-brained lazy family members. This, certainly, is justifiable; but when there is hue and cry against the different natural roles of the husband and the wife in a marriage, there arises absolute absurdity of thought. Why would a wife ever declaim cooking? All right, if the maintained stand is that women are not slaves – of which I also firmly uphold, why then should you ever request for a housemaid when the help most probably would be from this same female gender?
Finally, it should be clearly stated that this article is not at all condemning the feminist movement but only trying to sober us up a little and to mitigate the overly radicalness corresponding to rascality being displayed by a particular set. A discerning mind would realise that this article itself is, even if in the least, feminist. Now, this is a projector of the sounding gong to get the extremist feminists’ mind off the stray path. Conclusively, let it be known that feminism is not a war fought through libel and slander; rather, a struggle that should be targeted at, I reiterate, equity but never equality.
WRITER'S BIO:
Yusuff Uthman Adekola, presently a student of the University of Ibadan, is a campus journalist, a poet and an essayist who believes in the correctional cum enlightening power that the pen commands. He can be reached via +2348166599760 ; adekolayusuff@gmail.com ; FB: facebook.com/adecaller01
1 comments:
This is a very nice write up and I totally agree with you. Well-done, you're amazing!
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