On Feminism: The Hate We Give
In the wake of the new year, a pregnant woman, MumZee, trended on X(Twitter) for her tweet in the screenshot below. The quote sparked an outrage against feminism while fanning flames of favour for her. The Nigerian X was ‘cooking’ feminism, and that is where we begin.
Do You Hate Because of the Cooking?
Around October last year, I was discussing cooking as a gender role with a friend and co-founder of Boys Without Borders, an NGO for boy-child advocacy. He said something along this line: ‘I cannot marry a lady that cannot cook because I can cook, not because it is her “role” to do so’. Am I hinting at what you think I am? Yes. Cooking, Providing and, Protecting ought not to be gender roles.
Let us reason together. While discussing with some friends in November 2023, I explained how the role of the woman in the home has evolved making it nearly inevitable for her to not contribute financially to the household which is the role assigned to the man in a patriarchal society.
Having established this, I asked one of them, ‘If you believe that cooking is the exclusive role of the woman and the man can only chip in when he desires, what is the equivalent role for the man?’ He replied, ‘paying the rent or things like that’. I blurted, ‘a woman can do that too’. He countered that a woman won’t pay his rent — and therein lies the problem.
What Does Protection Even Mean?
I requested an explanation addressing protection as a man’s role and all I got was mostly related to the biology of the man. I added that protection can also be guidance and men and women can provide both.
Last year, BBC Pidgin reported on a team of plus-sized professional female bouncers and a scenario came to mind. If armed robbers were to enter a home, even the man would obey their bidding. However, if one of these women was the wife, she stands a better chance of challenging the robbers. But wouldn’t it be risky and unfair to expect anyone–man or woman, plus-sized or not–to ‘protect’ in such situations?
Recently, I saw a snake in the apartment I share with a woman. She wasn’t home. What if she was, and compelled me to kill the snake because it is the generation of ‘men’ who bruise the serpent’s head without knowing I have never killed one in my life?
I know some would jeer here saying this is what feminism does to men — makes them sissies. However, one of the objectives of feminism is to not ascribe roles by gender but by qualification or skill. What if I told you even the King of the Jungle juggles between sleep and rest for 21 hours daily while the lionesses hunt because they are better skilled at it?
What Feminism Should Not Be
I am a Christian and my religion is against fornication but we all know Christians who do not abide. Can someone help count the number of Christian denominations there are? Yeah, I lost count too. This is the case with misandry and ‘bitter’ feminism like the ones I am told thrive on X (I have addressed these before).
Like Christians who fornicate, misandrists in the feminism fold will always exist. Conversely, there would be ‘feminists’ with differing perspectives like we have different Christian denominations with their own doctrines, yet the same faith.
The Hate We Give
History has shown that the stifling of women was/is a norm. I am working on a comprehensive article that addresses the history of gender (in)equality but let’s have a quick summary. The bible shows it was normal not to count women, and didn’t vote until the late 19th century to early 20th century.
Do you understand how recent this is on the scale of human existence? Do you understand what it means to be omitted during a census because you’re a woman? Yet, while writing this article, I encountered femicide on X with two men threatening to kill women because they are female.
A black person understands that racism is hatred. Even without directly experiencing it, some of us could maim a white if we saw him just after reading Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years A Slave or the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. Brethren, it is not different from what women have and still experience at the hands of their own fathers, brothers, cousins, friends, uncles, co-workers, employers… Now, I ask, ‘Isn’t that enough to make a feminist, no, anyone, hate?’
Do Your Own Cooking
The paragraph above would have been my last, but I’d be risking some thinking that feminism is about reciprocating hate, that I stand for it, or that MumZee should not wake up at 4:30 am to cook for her husband though it may not be healthy.
I do not know the dynamics of your relationships but since this all started from X (twitter) and I have noticed it forms the basis of the understanding of what many think feminism is, I urge you to do a deep research on feminism and gender equality. Do your own cooking.
