NIGERIAN WOMEN AND ASSOCIATIONS

It is not always easy for a class of people long accustomed to playing secondary and most of the time, insignificant roles to rise up one morning and begin to play major roles. The journey from grass to grace is often tedious and replete with scathing jeers and explosions of debilitating mines laid on the way by die-hard conservatives.

The society itself takes delight in maintaining the status quo and as it were it looks at innovations with suspicion and tenaciously clings to conventions that should have been abandoned in the dustbin of history. And this is in spite of the strength and ferocity of the wind of change bowing across the world.

But it becomes mournful when the same subjugated group decides to torpedo efforts within and without to rid of the shackles that hold its members captive. These ‘second class’ citizens, the Nigerian women, seem to like groveling before the men and begging to be accorded respect and recognition when they have lethal weapons that could win their wars(if ever there was one)for them.

The Nigerian women have not got any justifiable reason to push the acceptance of the man as the head to a ridiculous angle. This is not a recipe for the equality of the sexes; it is just an articulation of the fact that women are less inclined to awe-inspiring achievements than their male counterparts.

Alexandra Duah, one of Ghana’s leading actresses, while highlighting the fact that women are often portrayed as soft, like mango, also emphasized that when we cut into a mango we usually find out that it has got a seed inside and that seed, we all know, is very hard. This implies that the era of women-are-weaker-vessels and the consequent injunction of handle-with-care has gone. But do women realize?

Some women do realize that their over-orchestrated exterior weak frame houses a hard, intellectually structured interior while most do not. But those who do will in one breath disentangle themselves socially and politically as they atrive in men’s ‘world’ and achieve commendable successes, not premised on the utilization of ‘bottom power’ only to get themselves entangled again in another breath.

This erratic disposition is why one may not be faulted if one dubbed the Nigerian women as a bundle of confusion. Perhaps, ‘confusion’ is not the word; ‘enigma’ appears more appropriate. Women constitute a labyrinth, a network of complex and confusing (this word again!) species one easily gets lost in as one tries to explore and possibly understand.

This is not an attempt to cast aspersions on their persons. But the trend of things suggests that most women do not really know their worth or they pretend not to know, the trend also suggests that they do now persons-who they are and what they are.

The Nigerian omen are a conglomeration of love, homeliness and kindness and on the other hand, a brood of unrepentant carriers of horrible hatred, rapacious quest for material things and wickedness. Undeniably, the fighting spirit of the Nigerian women is worth applauding. The resilience at erecting walls of defense and taking up arms and waging war against the army of social, economic and political subjugation is worthy of clap offering. They have flown like the eagle over mountains of humiliation and deprivations that once sought to choke the life out of them. They have tenaciously held their own and made progress in almost all fields of endeavor previously adjudged exclusive to men. In some cases, they have excelled having threaded with strong legs and conquered lands where many a man, for fear ?of the devil-real? or – imagined –had feared to even look at.

And here lies the irony. In spite of their giant strides and consequent exploits, they have not appreciated their worth. It is difficult to say whether this is a product of incurable naivety, or that of abject ignorance, or a case of extreme, albeit, barren modesty or an act of providence. What else informed and still informs the formation of the association of wives?

?No matter what, it is time the Nigerian women woke up to occupy their rightful position as people who do not need the identity of their husbands in order to establish theirs. At the risk of being accused of being repetitive, Nigerian women are intellectually, morally and spiritually endowed to compete favourably with their husbands, this is why they are still crying wolf when they have all the world to themselves.

Unless there is something hidden to be gained, the membership of women to association of wives is ridiculous. It belittles the worth of womanhood. When it is not Army Officer’s Wives Association, it is Police or Customs officer’s wives association. At some time, one hears of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Wives Association, Wives of Petroleum Engineers’ association or wives of…..

The idea behind these associations is nauseating. It is an aberration of the colossal stature of the Nigerian woman as an achiever. What makes it more ridiculous is that members of these associations are equally educated and talented as much as, not more than, some of their husbands whose identities they (the women) cave to be identified with.

But all Nigerian women are not guilty of belonging to any of these obsequious associations. Kudos must however, be given to wives of molue drivers, roadside mechanics, nightsoil men and a host of others who are not members of any association founded on the basis of their husband’s professions. These wives (let not one say that their husbands’ occupations are not prestigious) are representatives of the Nigerian women of our dream: courageous, resilient and hardworking.

If the lot of the Nigerian women who, no doubt have come of age will be improved, the associations of wives as we have them today must be killed. They do not present any positive socio-economic growth for the upliftment of women generally

It is not always easy for a class of people long accustomed to playing secondary and most of the time, insignificant roles to rise up one morning and begin to play major roles. The journey from grass to grace is often tedious and replete with scathing jeers and explosions of debilitating mines laid on the way by die-hard conservatives.

The society itself takes delight in maintaining the status quo and as it were it looks at innovations with suspicion and tenaciously clings to conventions that should have been abandoned in the dustbin of history. And this is in spite of the strength and ferocity of the wind of change bowing across the world.

But it becomes mournful when the same subjugated group decides to torpedo efforts within and without to rid of the shackles that hold its members captive. These ‘second class’ citizens, the Nigerian women, seem to like groveling before the men and begging to be accorded respect and recognition when they have lethal weapons that could win their wars(if ever there was one)for them.

The Nigerian women have not got any justifiable reason to push the acceptance of the man as the head to a ridiculous angle. This is not a recipe for the equality of the sexes; it is just an articulation of the fact that women are less inclined to awe-inspiring achievements than their male counterparts.

Alexandra Duah, one of Ghana’s leading actresses, while highlighting the fact that women are often portrayed as soft, like mango, also emphasized that when we cut into a mango we usually find out that it has got a seed inside and that seed, we all know, is very hard. This implies that the era of women-are-weaker-vessels and the consequent injunction of handle-with-care has gone. But do women realize?

Some women do realize that their over-orchestrated exterior weak frame houses a hard, intellectually structured interior while most do not. But those who do will in one breath disentangle themselves socially and politically as they atrive in men’s ‘world’ and achieve commendable successes, not premised on the utilization of ‘bottom power’ only to get themselves entangled again in another breath.

This erratic disposition is why one may not be faulted if one dubbed the Nigerian women as a bundle of confusion. Perhaps, ‘confusion’ is not the word; ‘enigma’ appears more appropriate. Women constitute a labyrinth, a network of complex and confusing (this word again!) species one easily gets lost in as one tries to explore and possibly understand.

This is not an attempt to cast aspersions on their persons. But the trend of things suggests that most women do not really know their worth or they pretend not to know, the trend also suggests that they do now persons-who they are and what they are.

The Nigerian omen are a conglomeration of love, homeliness and kindness and on the other hand, a brood of unrepentant carriers of horrible hatred, rapacious quest for material things and wickedness. Undeniably, the fighting spirit of the Nigerian women is worth applauding. The resilience at erecting walls of defense and taking up arms and waging war against the army of social, economic and political subjugation is worthy of clap offering. They have flown like the eagle over mountains of humiliation and deprivations that once sought to choke the life out of them. They have tenaciously held their own and made progress in almost all fields of endeavor previously adjudged exclusive to men. In some cases, they have excelled having threaded with strong legs and conquered lands where many a man, for fear ?of the devil-real? or – imagined –had feared to even look at.

And here lies the irony. In spite of their giant strides and consequent exploits, they have not appreciated their worth. It is difficult to say whether this is a product of incurable naivety, or that of abject ignorance, or a case of extreme, albeit, barren modesty or an act of providence. What else informed and still informs the formation of the association of wives?

?No matter what, it is time the Nigerian women woke up to occupy their rightful position as people who do not need the identity of their husbands in order to establish theirs. At the risk of being accused of being repetitive, Nigerian women are intellectually, morally and spiritually endowed to compete favourably with their husbands, this is why they are still crying wolf when they have all the world to themselves.

Unless there is something hidden to be gained, the membership of women to association of wives is ridiculous. It belittles the worth of womanhood. When it is not Army Officer’s Wives Association, it is Police or Customs officer’s wives association. At some time, one hears of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Wives Association, Wives of Petroleum Engineers’ association or wives of…..

The idea behind these associations is nauseating. It is an aberration of the colossal stature of the Nigerian woman as an achiever. What makes it more ridiculous is that members of these associations are equally educated and talented as much as, not more than, some of their husbands whose identities they (the women) cave to be identified with.

But all Nigerian women are not guilty of belonging to any of these obsequious associations. Kudos must however, be given to wives of molue drivers, roadside mechanics, nightsoil men and a host of others who are not members of any association founded on the basis of their husband’s professions. These wives (let not one say that their husbands’ occupations are not prestigious) are representatives of the Nigerian women of our dream: courageous, resilient and hardworking.

If the lot of the Nigerian women who, no doubt have come of age will be improved, the associations of wives as we have them today must be killed. They do not present any positive socio-economic growth for the upliftment of women generally

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