“Margaret Thatcher did not believe in the Female Liberation movement. Thatcher used her gender to promote her ability to get the job done, likening the nation’s account to a household budget, calling herself “The housewife who would clean up the country.”

-101 People Who Made the 21^ST Century, The History Channel

It appears to me that in recent times we have witnessed what seems to be the rise of hyper feminism on ‘Nigerian Twitter’. Now, it is possible that this has always been the case and your sister is just tardy to the party, particularly as Twitter is not my social media poison of choice. Granted. Still, I am no less surprised by the fury I see unleashed by a group of women on the institution of marriage. Or indeed the Bible and Christianity. All considered to be vehicles of the patriarchy used for subjugating women and maintaining a state of repression for the female sex.

This makes me sad because there is so much good in all three things: Marriage, the Bible, Christianity, and all three are in many ways a vehicle for the growth and advancement of women, for building the girl child into a well-rounded, confident and complete individual. If considered properly, reading the letter as well as the spirit, the Bible is actually a magnificent tool for battling injustice. God consistently sites injustice as the thing He hates and there are numerous rules and systems put in place from the Old to New Testaments, that indicate a desire to create a fairer, more equitable society for all, particularly within the historical and social context within which the Bible is written. Marriage, the Bible and Christianity, the subject of much furor by what I consider the Feminist Max movement, simply establish systems. People work systems. It is possible that the people working a system fail. This does not mean the system has failed

I guess this came to the forefront of my mind because yesterday an adopted friend- my husband’s friend who has now become mine- Kel, and I were talking about variations in the language of the Bible. Lol I know, ONLY fun over here. We were considering how we are compelled to read various versions to get a true understanding of one verse or chapter.  He said something interesting. He told me, sometimes you’ll find a word in one version of the Bible and until you read one or two other versions, you might struggle to find the meaning of that word in its true context. He said, take the word “World” for instance. Did you know that there are several portions of the bible where the word world actually means the Age? And we veered off and began to think of the Age we are presently in. I mean, what a time to be alive!

We are witnessing what our ancestors would have considered magic! Every day new discoveries and improved inventions are being unearthed. We have never in the history of the earth had a time with as many freedoms to be ourselves. Today, you can choose to commit yourself in matrimony, unholy or otherwise, to an inanimate object! You can willingly fall out of a plane for fun, fly around the world in less than a week, even attempt to preserve yourself to resurrect when technology allows. Truly, what a time to be alive! With all these changes, there is a spirit of the age that cuts across geographical, cultural, fiscal boundaries. There is a greater move for autonomous existence. Not only autonomy from the concept of a benign, heavenly being. There is a drive for autonomy from traditional roles, old dependence on the sexes we have relied upon through the ages.

The spirit of this age is independence.

So, we see our sisters and some brothers on Twitter raising questions that previously may not have been considered. Questions which prior to this time, may have been subversive to even think, in an African home, in a Nigerian marriage. And I commend this. I applaud this quest for knowledge, this dissatisfaction with the status quo. Questions around consent, child abuse, inequality are long overdue. Questions that ought to be lifted to the light, considered, dissected, discussed, debated. This. Is. Important. I commend every single person who has had the courage to raise an unpopular opinion, who has championed debate, who has provoked new thoughts in old minds.

The downside of this though, is that sometimes we begin to question things without context or true relevance to the cause of social improvement. Take for instance our resident card-carrying feminist Chimamanda Adichie. If you read me, you know I adore this woman as I’ve had a few articles on this site praising her literary prowess particularly, in one form or another. However, I was legit surprised to hear her berate Hilary Clinton the former Secretary of State, for putting “Wife, Mother…” in her Twitter bio. Granted, I well understood the nuance of the question, but I think it set a poor tone and highlights one of my main issues with the aggressive ‘feminist’ trend, this Feminism Max movement: It is HILARY’s Twitter! Damn, let the woman be who she wants to be! The audacity of a woman to criticize another’s choices because they are not ‘woman enough’ just boggles my brain.

The hypocrisy is surprising. I understand now how dictators topple elected governments with the best intentions…then establish a new dictatorship with identical rules. I start reading some of these tweets, especially those about relationships between African (read: Nigerian) men and women, and initially I am pretty excited because say what you want, these women are raising some issues that must be talked about. The inequality in our society is not just glaring it is shocking when you think of what so many regard as normal. So I love the fact that the misogyny in our society is being called out by its name. Then, the entire thing takes a different turn and becomes almost hate speech. There is no differentiation between the hordes of men prancing the earth’s surface, instead, all men are considered the Antichrist and nothing they do, good or bad, is done without an ulterior motive: To ingrain the patriarchy and subjugate women.

This feminist movement which teaches independence of women FROM men, seems to be entirely rooted in and defined by what they seem to hate, men.

Chimamanda for instance, alluded to the fact that Bill Clinton does not have “Husband, Father…” on his bio. Sigh. Do you know what? I’m just going to allow my friend Eki answer that.

“Bill Clinton didn’t put father and husband first, so why did Hilary? Bish, Hilary don’t care what Bill did or did not do! LOL!”

-Eki

And that’s exactly it. This brand of feminism is so antagonistic to men… yet so male-identified! You are fighting against men and yet, so centered on men! So concerned about men and what they are or aren’t doing. We.Are.Women. We stomp to the beat of our own drum, trot and rock to the tune WE create. We do not need to be identified and defined in the limited space between men and their shadow. Hilary has the right to place her role as wife and mother at the hierarchy of her achievements, even though she has practically ruled the most powerful nation in the world as Madam Secretary. She reserves the right to believe that the personal and private responsibility of raising a child she brought into this world and received stewardship over, is the singular most important thing she can do. In fact, she has the right (and Feminist Max adherents, you might want to close your eyes and ears here a la See No Evil, Hear No Evil), indeed Hilary is perfectly entitled to the belief that being a wife is her highest calling. It might be a crazy opinion.

But, it is hers.

And that, put simply, is why it deserves all our respect and all our support as feminists. This tendency to insist that any opinion that does not align with the feral feminist assumptions must be “conditioned judgement” is disturbing. If you think everyone who doesn’t agree with you is a product of brainwashing, there is no logical frame within which to engage you insightful discourse or productive debate.

And this would all be a bit of funny social media banter…if it was not warping an already messy social dynamic in real life. Generalizing the entire male gender, making assumptions based on your stereotypes and limited experiences, and disseminating these widely to a malleable group of young people active on social media is dangerous. It makes the entire system even more divisive, increasing misunderstandings and miscommunications. In the end no one wins. Young women are growing up with false ideas about men and marriage, young men who could be learning about better ways to treat women, to prevent the horrors of the past, cannot wade through the murky waters of antagonism and hatred to get clarity and true enlightenment. Nobody wins…but the Twitter thumbs with their “Yassss Girl!” audiences. And is that really a win, yall?

“The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity – that it’s this or maybe that – you have just one large statement; It is this.”

-Chinua Achebe

It’s a shame because I do agree with Chimamanda, we should all be feminists. We should all stand up for equity, not just equality. We all have a responsibility to fight for freedom, for the rights of every individual to be free from attack, hatred and subjugation. However, in these discussions, it is important that we do not erase the role of personal responsibility and self-assessment. I read some of these posts on Twitter about Nigerian men in marriages and the sufferings of the Nigerian wife and I really shake my head because guess what sis, you can’t abdicate the throne of responsibility when you coronated yourself.

You chose your spouse.

That responsibility is yours.

You have a hand in creating an enabling environment for the sort of life you want and you cannot allow societal pressures or your-friends-in-your-head drive you into making poor choices. Worse, you cannot make bad decisions and cry online without giving us some context, sis! People are looking for people to follow, the responsibility is too great. Many times, people sacrifice what they need for what they want as a compromise to enter a marriage. The system will not be cheated, you will pay at some point. You think after you’ve married the rich man who thinks “You were not on the court shooting with me!”, he will suddenly turn around and open his bank account for you to freely stretch your neatly painted acrylics into? Girl, stop.

We must take responsibility for the choices we are making to secure ourselves in this entrapment. It’s hilarious that in a nation that WORSHIPS marriage, some of your fave tweeting sisters are sitting in the comfort of their husband’s home, child, cook and driver at hand, living the Nigerian dream, lovingly ensconced by the very bonds they preach against. Telling sisters to fight the power… from within the warmth of the power’s embrace.

Baby, say it with your chest or not at all.

It is incredibly hard to be single in perpetuity because the world loves love! So, don’t demonise people for wanting to find it. For wanting a home and a family they chose. Why criticize those that desire to find it? Especially when you have found it. Play nice.

I shook my head sadly the day I read a tweet from this girl seriously apologizing on these mean Twitter streets, for having the sensation of butterflies in her tummy when speaking to guys she liked. Sis was legit apologizing. In her words, she said before she became woke and took back her power, she would have butterflies, a nervousness around men she liked.

Beloved, staying woke is having your own mind!

This little sis put this butterfly discussion out there to her listening Feminism Max audience and the general perception was you were weak and a victim to the power dynamic the patriarchy put in place to keep women repressed. I was really surprised to find that even simple biology could be warped and turned into a weird power play for which an innocent should be apologetic of. Indeed one lady went as far as to emphasize the fact that before she got married, she only felt those sort of butterflies for her girlfriends and the sisterhood they shared. The irony.

Way to demonize another woman’s real and personal experience! There is no right way to feel, because feelings are subjective. How can we insist that all women, with their varied experiences, plans, compositions, think in one way and if you don’t think in the same was as your Feminism Max sister, you are sadly a product of misogyny because your mind has not been freed? Again, if you think everyone who doesn’t agree with you is a product of brainwashing, there is no logical frame within which to engage you.

What proponents for such an aggressive feminist trend fail to realise is that by diminishing the decisions of other women to elevate your choices, to make your decisions appear more important, more considered, more relevant or better than another’s, you, a woman, a feminist, not the patriarchy pull women down.