WHY IS THE "FEMINIST" SO THREATENING?

“You’re a feminist?!” a colleague asks me in astonishment. Scared at what may seem like an insult, I then rush to the nearest dictionary to look up a word I am already familiar with. Guilt ridden but yet firm, I reply him with a shy silent “yes” I could swear that even a bat would have difficulty hearing what I said.

It got me asking what is wrong about feminism and why has been portrayed as such an outrageous offense. We speak of it like how you would be talking about terrorism. In the rural setting, a feminist is a very unhappy woman because she cannot find a husband. On another survey research, people claimed it was not the “African culture” and that is for women of nowadays who have been corrupted by the ‘western culture’ so they say.

The feminist carries a lot of baggage and this is basically the negative lot. You either hate men or hate bras or you hate African culture or you have deep issues that sort of thing. Over the years, feminism has been mistaken to being sexist and this has got to stop.

The biggest mistake made by many is that we think what is common to us is common to others. Men and women differ in various sectors in life. We have different hormones, different sexual organs, different biological abilities; Men are in general are physically stronger than women, in regards to population, there are slightly more women than men and yet men dominate positions of power and prestige. The late Kenyan, Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai went straight to the point when she said, “The higher you go the fewer women there are.”

When Chimamanda Ngozi talked about all these small eye opening things like the waiter greeting the man she is with and ignoring her, giving money to the parking official and he turns to thank the officer. It is one thing to know this intellectually and another to feel it emotionally.

The invisibility cold that kicks in at the sight of the special treatment being delivered by the waiter towards a male you are dining with, getting kicked out of a building for a certain way dressing even when not vulgar working hand in hand with a man and him being paid more, cooking for an elder sibling food because you happen to be a ‘girl’. This is upsetting! It is the little things that sting the most.

The young Nigeria feminist said, “Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. We should all be angry..”  However it is not only women that suffer through these injustices, boys have been taught to be afraid of vulnerability and weakness”, they are castigated and ostracized if thought to be otherwise. Men are always expected to pay the bill in most areas especially in Africa. We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes. Men do not have the benefits of gender equality either.

We all seem to forget that we make culture and culture does not make us, if we are to go on blaming this hate on culture.

In a un speech by the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson said that if you hate the word –it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it.

For the record, feminism by definition is “the belief that men and women should equal rights and opportunities. It is a theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

The best feminist I have met is my elder brother. He is also a generous, good looking and a very lovely gen