Dairy of a Naija Feminist: Episode 1

The Baby Naija Feminist

I like to tell myself that I became a feminist at age 10 or so (if I remember correctly); that was when my mom told me I spoke like a women’s rights activist. I don’t exactly remember the subject of this discussion however, I reckon it was something about women and what I thought was unfair about what women had to do. We had a lot of conversations like that during my teenage years; me and my mom. For some reason I don’t recall how these conversations ended, did I win or did she win? Did she let me have the final say or did I receive a lecture on my place in society. I think it was both, I think my mom let me win sometimes because maybe, in her mind she wanted to have defiant arguments about her rights too.

We both had never heard of the word “feminist” and we didn’t hear anything of it until a couple of years later. Of course I was more informed about the word than she was given that she asked me if “feminist” was a cult of unruly women who didn’t want to perform the simple task of making their husband’s meals. Now, my initial perception of feminism was not that great as well. In fact, I seem to recall a particular conversation (or argument if you will) with a young man, a conversation that lasted three hours. As was common then and now, the phrase “so you are a feminist” was thrown at my face. When this bullet was thrown at me, I promptly denied. “No I am not” I insisted, “I simply don’t think this and this is fair to women”. I like to think of that day and laugh, I was such a feminist, especially the kind he referred to. I mean, what radical feminist isn’t.

In my defense, in those days, feminism didn’t exactly have a good rep. All I knew about feminism was the constant twitter banters about how cooking for men was oppressive. I also knew that these women were always called bitter and lesbians and any mention of women’s rights in public would earn you a disdainful look, by males and females, followed by an “are you a feminist” question. In 2015/16, the worse thing to be was a bitter woman and a lesbian, it promised a husbandless future filled with self loathing and jealousy towards women who could actually keep men. Nobody wanted to live like that or at least be seen as someone with that future, so there were very few public feminists. Honestly, I did not understand why cooking was such a big deal to these women, “it is just cooking”, I told myself, “do they expect the men to do it themselves”, “and there are more problems these women need to address in feminism like rape and domestic abuse”. So, I remained in denial for a while, until I read “we should all be feminists” by Chimmanda Adiche, but that is a story for another day.

My baby feminist days were categorized by anger. Eeei God, I was very angry. I was angry with everything, with everyone, I kept wondering how they were so blind, I had long arguments that ended some of my friendships. I kept wondering how Chimmanada just had quiet eloquent conversations instead of removing her shoe, flinging it at people’s heads and calling them idiots, because God knows it cannot be me. Maybe it can be me now o, but not then, I don’t even want to check if it can be me or not. I am still angry sometimes, but mostly I decide to choose peace. The peace started when I left twitter, I almost pulled my hair out because of that place but thank God I left; that is also another story for another day.

During this time, I had never even heard of the term misogyny or patriarchy. All I knew was that, some things could not be the way they were because it was oppressive. I am glad I got properly schooled on the subject, it made me realize what the big deal about cooking is; you don’t have to understand too o, but I understand now. The more you learn, you realize how complex and intertwined this whole thing is. If you think you are feminist and you are reading this post, you will be angry o, very angry many times but if you can, try to tell yourself that your anger will not change anyone’s mind. Neither will quiet attempted intellectual debates with misogynistic Nigerian men, you have been warned

For my definition of a Naija feminist, I will attempt to quote random tweets and statements I have seen over the years. “a Naija feminist is a confused woman who does not want to give anything but wants to receive, a bitter woman, a lesbian, a woman who wants to become the head of the house under the guise of equality, a woman who will still get married after all her ranting” and the most important title of all “an Ashawo”.