Earlier this month, the gruesome murder of a 21 year old South African threw the digital community into a wide, club-wielding frenzy over the issue of domestic violence. There were angry posts, reposts, threads with thousands of comments and tweets and help lines circulating all over the internet.
In one tweet, a fed-up friend of the deceased showed just how upset she was with a post bearing the hash tag #MenAreTrash. It was supposed to be a venting of anger about men who turn women into punching bags and their homes into boxing rings. Like most online trend topics, this was picked up and milked for what it was worth – or not.
When the hash tag went viral especially in the South African region and later picked up by Nigerians, women who had jumped on the train were labelled ‘feminists’ and subsequently the mudslinging began.
These ‘social media feminists’ as they were called, were regarded as operating with double standards, hell-bent on usurping and turning African values and cultures on its head and in fact, fighting for female supremacy as opposed to equality between the genders like they assume they do.
It was a full blown online war of the sexes amongst millennials.
If there’s one label you do not want to be easily associated with as a Nigerian female (or male), it is the ‘Feminist’ label. A ‘social media feminist’ label is an even worse fate.
The word has come to mean and be associated with a million and one colourful things but what the feminist struggle is originally said to be about.
Feminism, as a series of causes that began in the 19th and early 20th century, was mostly location, historical and culturally dependent. While all movements till date have women at the centre, the various waves of feminism centred on specific challenges that ailed women at that point in time.
While some equated women’s rights with the right to vote or be elected into public and political offices, some others referred to equal rights as the opportunity to own property or receive an education.
In the United States, women weren’t exactly able to vote in all elections in the country. In 1870, the 15th Amendment, which would grant men of colour the right to vote, was ratified and women weren’t pleased. Between 1869 and 1896, only four states had granted women the right to vote. Some texts say as much as 15 states allowed women to vote sometimes only in presidential elections.
To fight for women’s rights to vote, several women’s rights associations and movements were formed pushing for ratification of state law amendments to provide women the rights to vote. The idea was to have so many states sign this into law to the extent that it got the attention of the federal government and they followed suit.
It wasn’t until 1920 and four amendments later that the right of women to vote was ratified federally in the 19th Amendment. What followed in the U.S. in relation to feminist movements was a cry for social justice and civil rights that included issues of property ownership, domestic violence and abortion rights.
In the African context, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the mother of Afrobeat legend Fela, was regarded as a fierce feminist, challenging and forming coalitions with women on issues that were oppressive to them including the right to vote and be heard in governance of society and in issues relating to women.
There were numerous protests and women uprisings like the popular Aba Women’s Riot of 1929. Sierra-Leonean, Adelaide Smith Casely-Hayford, fought for the rights of Sierra Leonean girls to education. Margaret Ekpo fought to have women represented in political meetings and decision making in the country. And so were many others.
A lot of issues are evident in the trending of this hash tag and the fact that the average male millennial is constantly waging war on the average female millennial and vice versa, on issues of gender inequality.
The fate that befell the young South African in the hands of her male partner is highly disturbing and quite painful but does this make all men similar in action? And while some ‘feminists’ are not exactly championing causes similar to those championed by their forbears, does that make their struggle any less important? Their forbears fought for issues that mattered to them – taxes, rights to vote, rights to political participation. That has been the pattern with feminist movements from time immemorial.
The problem with being feminist in Nigeria is that it has been portrayed and accepted and ridiculed as a poisonous western movement that has destroyed the fabrics of culture and tradition in their societies and is now being sold to African women so they can destroy their own societies. The problem also with feminism in Nigeria is that a lot of people accuse feminists of being brain-washed by women like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and hence not being able to think for themselves and build stable families whereas women like her have thriving homes and families. Another challenge with feminism in Nigeria is that men assume that all feminists are men-haters, misandrists, who have no sense of value for family, authority and/or culture.
With hash tags like these, it isn’t hard to see why these ideologies are widely propagated and accepted. It seemed an outright incitement of the online community to a war between the sexes and the reaction that followed showed that this was successfully achieved much to my disapproval. Regarding it as feminist however, is belittling the work and advocacy of women like Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo and Chimamanda Adichie. A new generation of feminists are emerging in various forms and utilising various kinds of media to make their voices heard and quite frankly, 2017 has offered a wider range of vocal/written outlets and so it is easier to have a barraging of diverse messages being fed people daily about what feminism is or what it is not. And while the message may still be a bit jumbled up, like the speech of a two-year-old still learning to use his/her speaking faculties, the discourse on social media shows that this group of women are mostly still trying to find a sturdy voice and a worthy cause. The fatal incident of domestic abuse has clearly added the fight for justice in domestic abuse incidents and the right to speak up and seek help, to the list.
We can only look closely at culture clusters and at the lives of one or two women around us to realise that there are a lot more causes that need to be fought for by women for women in our country. Child marriages in the north, property ownership and inheritance in the east, domestic abuse nationwide, political participation nationwide, and so many others.
Looking at the big picture, the injustice and oppression in the world cannot be solved or cured by a single movement or only by a certain group of people. The South African will fight against apartheid with more fierceness than a Nigerian would. A Black American living in America will fight against racism with more fierceness than a Nigerian living in Nigeria would. A Palli indigene from Adamawa State will fight against tribal minority and majority factions with more fierceness than an Igbo indigene (relatively). And though the methods and media of war differ, we cannot negate the significance of their struggles and the personal redemption we each seek for ourselves, our kind and maybe our world.
We will do well to remember this when we think of feminism in the Nigerian context.
