There is a memory from primary school that I have been thinking of more often these days. I’m not sure if it occurred in primary one or in late nursery school. What I do remember is this: We were learning the Biblical story of Esther and Vashti and to illustrate, our teacher made one of the boys the king who had to pick out the ideal woman a.k.a Esther.
My memory tends to be hazy but I clearly remember wanting to be picked by him, I remember the smirk on his face when he noticed that I wanted to be picked and the eventual fact that he picked someone else.
Now I cannot remember the facial features of this girl but what I do remember feeling was the feeling of slight jealousy and hurt that I was not picked by him.
Of late, my mind has also been taking me to We Should All Be Feminists, the decade old Ted Talk given by award winning novelist and speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In a part of the speech, Ms. Adichie mentioned how young girls are taught not to compete for jobs or for accomplishments but rather for the attention of men.
Each time I think about the earlier mentioned memory from primary school, the words of Ms. Adichie float in a corner of my mind. And why is that?
Why do we teach young girls from as early as they can speak, that rather than conquer the world and explore their potential as full individuals, they must live their lives in limbo, waiting to be saved by a knight in a shining armour? Why do we not make conscious efforts to teach young girls that if they must aspire for attention at all, then it must be the attention of those who are instrumental to their career growth?
For instance, why is it that more effort is given to buying baby girls dollhouses that quietly reinforce the idea of being a wife? This is even though the toys bought for boys are hardly ever about them nurturing babies or being in servitude to anyone? Why is it that boys have toys directed towards curiousity while girls have toys that are directed towards labour?
Furthermore, what then happens when these girls have no man to focus all the years of learning to be a wife and when these boys are clueless on how to be present dads? We experience an imbalance such that young girls and teenagers are more concerned with having their looks accepted by the popular boys in school while the boys cannot be bothered to be decent human beings because they know they are the prize after all is said and done.
Speaking with Kehinde, a writer and teacher, she explained that the solution starts in raising girls to choose themselves.
In her words: “I think we need to start from the grassroot which is the “parenting”. When you raise your girl child in preparation to serve the male gender it’ll be difficult to stop them from craving the male attention because that’s all they’ve known. Telling your daughter to learn how to cook so that her husband will not cheat instead of it being a means to survival is implying that a cheating husband is the woman’s fault. Teaching your daughter to learn how to clean while ignoring the male child is also part of it.”
She went on to say: “You’ve literally implanted an idea in her head that she has to live her life so she can be the “chosen” one for a man. We need to start with teaching children to do chores because it’s the right way to live instead of them being seen as “wife materials”. And let’s not forget the popular statement “a man is the head and no matter how better you are than him you must not show it so as to keep your home”. Let’s encourage girls to not keep their heads low to uplift a man. It’s not our job. If he is bruised from your success then that’s on him not you. Let’s encourage girls that it’s okay to shine over their men. Let no man dim your lights queens.”
For Glory, an editor and writer, she says that it is imperative to decenter men otherwise one may end up hating other women.
To quote her: “I think it’s very important that as a woman, you decenter men. It may take unlearning considering how as a young girl you are basically being prepped to belong to a man, to be a man’s wife. If you don’t unlearn, you will have a lot of difficulty having relationships with other women because you would want to center men all the time and even compete with your friends for the attention of these men.
There was a time my friend and I met this dude and we were all hanging out a lot. I liked him and I noticed she liked him too. Then he was like oh I like both of you so much…I had to take a step back because I wasn’t about to start doing the boy is mine with my friend. It was really easy doing that. So yes, the solution is to decenter men.”
It is of utmost importance that we teach young girls and women to prioritise sisterhood, career and self development over and above chasing and competing with each other for the attention of men.
If this is not done, we would continue to see young women get into nasty fights online and physically to prove that they are wanted and taken by a particular man.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.
