TGIF’s Rant

In the world of some people, anyone who does not agree with their life view, no matter how enlightened they are, must be very delusional and hence must be ostracized from their list. I believe certain people have an agenda that is aimed at creating an army of women who are primarily one-dimensional thinkers and that has inspired her extremely hostile attitude towards men who disagree with her.

For instance, these people might say ‘all men are stupid’ and then a man goes on her page to enlighten her on how the spectrum of stupidity doesn’t exclude his/her loved ones. Guess what? the next response would be to block that person and delete the comment. I believe the reason for acting that way is because people fear they would lose acceptability amongst their ‘fans’ when they begin to see for themselves the limitations of their role model’s thought process. Why dismiss a man as a moron because he appealed to you to respect his Yoruba culture? Why block a person like James Durojaiye because he said your ideals about naming a child with the mother’s name will not be accepted in a country like Nigeria? Is resentment for the African culture a hallmark of the strain of western feminism which she is trying to export to Nigeria? Is feminism all about hate for men? Or a total disregard for being civil towards one another?

Due to the complexity of our society, we cannot, therefore, afford to promote people with this attitude of intolerance towards contrary opinions and hate towards others, while allowing them to define how we form our views. If we do this, we risk becoming one-dimensional thinkers, ultimately siphoning away our ability to see the world as it is, in beautiful shades of grey. Our view – incomplete at the best of times – become oversimplified so that we miss out on knowing and understanding important things.

The hallmark of intelligence is critical thinking. Critical thinking can only exist in a forum where opinions are multi-dimensional. Those who ban dissenting voices cannot in all honesty claim to be intelligent. They are simply afraid of their idiocy.

I believe tradition should be reviewed from time to time because it is man-made and whatever is man-made should be a subject of scrutiny. A tradition that seeks to commodify women is a gobbledygook tradition and any society that accepts such can be termed obsolete. A tradition that victimizes a woman whose husband is late has outlived its essence and one that says a girl-child is not entitled to any inheritance is rightfully expired.

We are Africans and there are core cultural values and customs that define us. As long as these values and practices do not put a woman in harm’s way, I don’t see any reason why we should make noise about them. The African culture, like so all other cultures around the world, is far from perfect and flawless, there still are certain parts of our culture that might need rewriting. These are the kind of issues we should be addressing and not insulting the sensibility of a certain gender in general. There are serious issues that affect humanity that we can address to create a safe world for the next generation. Feminism is about gender equality, anything beyond that might be considered hogwash.

Telling women to commit adultery because their husbands cheated on them is satanism at its best. You cannot tell people to sin against God and themselves for revenge. Telling women to reject the missionary style of intercourse because it reinforces patriarchy is idiocy at its best. Advising single women to reject the concept of ‘bride price’ because that is not how it is done in the west is mental slavery at its best. Telling women not to attend churches where God’s standard of marriage is being preached is Witchcraft.

Feminism is not a call for wives to rebel against their husbands nor is it to encourage stupidity. I once saw a feminist asking why it is called ‘MENU’ rather than ‘WOMENU’. Some feminists think that Christians should no longer say ‘Amen’ to prayers but ‘Awomen’. Others are insisting that the bible should be edited because according to them, it does not conform to their ideologies. This is the kind of feminism certain persons (whom I will not mention here) represent and I feel very sorry for the gullible people who beyond discernment and logical reasoning open their hearts to such corruption.
I understand the sensitivity of this topic and the fact that it may be offensive to some but like I always say you do not need to be a feminist, you do not need to be a masculinist to help the world become a better place. Fairness to all is key and the answer lies in the golden rule as postulated by Jesus Christ – do unto others what you would want them to do unto you. Like our lecturers at LBS would say, fight the positive-sum battle where everyone wins and not the zero-sum one where there is only one winner and the other person loses.