“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued.” These are the words of Burmese activist and Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. In numerous ways, Suu Kyi’s words speak to our cynical, tokenistic attitude towards women and women-related issues in these shores. Unfortunately, woven in layers of shrouds of some sort of Masonic doctrines in the name of cultural practices/religion, such gestures all too often become too warm in their stealthy misogyny and sexism. But their true form remains very recognisable to any eye that refuses to fall for the psychological/emotional hold of cultural/religious devices.
In their more sophisticated form, these devices even become an all-too-potent means of segregation and class discrimination. The wave of mass marrying-off of (poor) women which seems to have become a new fad in some northern states – read Zamfara, Kano and Sokoto states – in Nigeria just mirrors every other form of bullying known to us. In our society, wealth and social standing are measured by how many wretched souls live in one’s shadows; how many others lack the basics for a decent life compared to oneself. So, the more the number of “married off” women who, together with their offspring, have to go to the doorstep of the elite to scavenge for a living because they have next to no other economic power, the more verve the elite’s ego gets. Just like in any other the-bully-and-the-bullied scenario.
Whilst the trend had been an ongoing thing in the two other states, Kano, the heartbeat of northern Nigeria recently brought the practice further to the fore with a well-televised mass wedding ball for tens of ‘couples.’ And the critical media response to the issue has been impressive, honestly. However, let’s not be under any illusion that this practice has only just begun in that region of the country. Far from it, it has merely become more prominent because of the celebrated, more brazen government endorsement of it, especially in Kano.
Now, it is one thing when the government and everybody else are trying to sell you the ticket of a second-class citizen. But it is, quite tragically, a different matter altogether if you, for whatever reason, are actively pursuing such a status directly or indirectly. We may excuse the desperation of some of the women like those in Zamfara who reportedly forced the hand of the state government into organising mass wedding for them for they have – sadly – been brought up to know no other life than that in which marriage and childbearing are the ultimate end. These sort of women have been tamed just to see the small picture only, rather than the bigger picture. But it is quite ironic that there are more and more supposedly civilised (and I use the term ‘civilised’ loosely here) women who are helping the rest of society to see women as objects these days. Even in the southern part of Nigeria, where we are wont to readily admit that female social awareness and the whole gamut have grown stronger roots compared to the North.
The 20th Century American cultural anthropologist, Dr. Margaret Mead had this rather lighthearted take on life in the 1950s and 60s: “Women want mediocre men and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible.” What we are seeing more and more of today is that the larger, male-dominated society is working harder at objectifying women in various ways while many women, for a kaleidoscope of reasons – chief among which is economic reason – are trying harder at being objects for the perverted consumption of preying groups or individuals. It is on television especially in musical videos where scandalously clad women enthusiastically wriggle their waists and jog their chests to lewd lyrics that unabashedly talk down on their womanhood and humanness. All this while being side-by-side fully clothed men who eagerly grope the women in question for effect.
You see it also on the streets with skimpily-dressed young women jigging and romping for the sensual pleasure of the public, all in the name of outdoor promotion for products. There are equally many shades of this in less-public cases – even among ‘enlightened’ folk – whereby, for whatever reason, a woman’s desperate, grand ambition is simply to end up as Mrs. Wife and would therefore, go to most ends to find a man to prefix her name to.
Of course, apostles of ‘marrying offs’ would readily claim that the wedding carnivals were created precisely to tackle most of these trends. But as we know, such ‘marrying offs’ still hold the woman up as an object – pretty much like the furniture in your house – to be tossed into any corner of the room that is comfortable for the owner. Women, especially ‘enlightened’ young women, can do better to learn to own and control their bodies (in the most serious sense of the term) rather than naively cede that power to men for whatever gain.
Irrespective of what women are doing right or wrong here, is it too ambitious to ask for a more responsible leadership that strives for a more open, actually egalitarian society for all; a state of affairs that offers women a fairer chance at education and all the possibly more rewarding socio-economic chain-effects that come with such for the larger society’s good? Take not that this is not merely about women oppression, for the consequences sink much deeper than that. Imagine how much more poverty is being deepened by stitching men and women together in pseudo-marriages – unions in which an offspring get an automatic ticket to start life with a social, intellectual and economic handicap because the parents do not possess the most basic intellectual and economic wherewithal (education) to ready the child to compete with his/her peers. And then the poverty cycle goes on and on.
Sadly though, it seems almost safe to say that, held firmly in place by its cultural/religious rafters, our patriarchy, especially in the North, will always (for the foreseeable future at least) feel too secure to think of challenging Suu Kyi’s views or to fathom that not browbeating women into accepting somebody else’s idea of life and livelihood can only prime many more citizens to compete favourably in the stern strife of actual 21st Century life.
