My Feminist Manifesto

So when I wanted to do this piece, it scared my friends for me. I could feel the concern in their tweets, voices and messages as they encouraged me to go ahead with caution. You know why? Because Feminism has become a topic for only the bold and fearless, who are ready to weather the storms of taking a stand. The sharks are ready to pounce at the sight of blood and take no prisoners.

This makes it genuinely difficult to have the conversation. You have too many angry people on all sides. But I will try to explain the concept the way I understand it to be, no recourse to popular templates and biases, just what I think. At this point, I am scared myself, but we have to have this conversation if we ever want to agree on the way forward, which is creating a system that allows for more opportunities for women to live their lives as they want to.

I have been fortunate to live around very strong women! My mum is one of the strongest women I know with tangible testimonies from people who have experienced her. She goes for what she wants, does what she can and has always been ready to put herself in the ring not minding the gender on the other side. So, I grew up with two other boys, my dad and her; understanding that women are strong, invaluable and should never be underrated. Armed with an amazing intuition, we learnt by reason of use to never ignore her thoughts or advice for and on anything. At different points, it happened as she said and I cannot count the number of “I told you so” we heard until we learnt our lessons.

As a church boy growing up, despite attending CAC (This most likely would sound as a contrast to many people who have worshipped here), my pastor’s wife was very influential in the scheme of things. She couldn’t be ignored, and I loved her so much. All my time in secondary school, my best friends were always very amazing ladies, from the superbly intelligent Yemisi Olaniyan to the ingenious Omoloba Toyin, I had always met amazing ladies who exerted their influence irrespective of the space.

Owolabi Naomi became the first female president of CFI FUTA (Federal University of Technology Akure) and she was a mentee that wowed me on all grounds. I was usually at the campus fellowship for services and she led the fellowship with an amazing sense of grit, grace and influence. And then I met Blessing Timidi, few words said, but she is an amazing example of what feminism is all about — equality for all gender.

So, until recently, I was insulated from some experiences people complained about and only saw the benefits. What was closer were the countless number of openings tailored to women and males losing opportunities even though they were better at interviews because of quota systems. Yeah, the painful moments of getting more punishments for the same offence committed with a girl at secondary school. I mean, we did the same thing, but the teacher locates the north when he wants to flog me with a face of “You will suffer today”, but loses it in a gradual journey down south when it’s the ladies’ turn. Hence, more often than not, I felt cheated than ready to understand why. Because for me, I was trained and exposed to see women as strong and deserving right from the start. Equal opportunity was not far-fetched, so this skewed form of equity of opportunity that denied the male figures was crazy.

But now I know how much Culture has denied young girls of opportunities to explore realities that prepare them to compete equally. Now I know, how defining ladies by just roles have affected how people receive them in the context contributions to major events and happenings. Now I understand how the fact that some men grew to intrinsically see women as objects to be preyed on, made them open up opportunities for them to come in, not because of their skills, but because of access to the prey. It is so crazy that some things are even unintentionally exerted but based on culture, societal bias and even learned habits. So, when I scream that women should build capacity, while true, I was seemingly oblivious to the many things that have inhibited them over the years from effectively competing.

While the issues abound and careful thought on some advantages we(guys) enjoy that we did not ask of, that sometimes are on the flip side in terms of disadvantages for the female folks would reveal a lot more areas where we need to do well. So, I will stop here in terms of the experiences listed in the above paragraph. However, understanding the issues, what should be the way forward?

First, I have seen a lot more fights on social media than efforts to solve the situation. It has been more of an “us” against them, in a fight where we are all victims. For instance, while patriarchy makes it difficult for men with the plenty responsibilities and expectations; amid trying to come up to get air, they are attacked vehemently for privileges some of them are not even enjoying. Hence, pushed to the wall, they fight back, oftentimes without even understanding why, but within the boundaries of self-preservation. This is human. Because in the same vein, I have seen more calls for equality for women when it comes to opportunities than responsibilities. When it is an advantage, we have fewer complaints, but the roofs are brought down in the areas of disadvantages; again, no issues really, we are humans. It is human. And as we say…we can’t mask good intentions around anger. We need to understand that a feminist would do the same thing men have done if the scales tilt.

More often than not, one place we get it wrong is that we fight people on issues we should educate them about. So rather than enlist the support of men in the quest for equality and equity, we create enemies out of people that should be partners. Sadly, this always makes the fight dirtier than solution driven. First, the fight against feminism is on a lot of grounds: the women who do not understand the need for the privileges being fought for and who are enjoying from the status quo, men who sincerely do not know why but have been unintentionally exhibiting misogynistic tendencies because they grew up that way, men who know the right thing to do and don’t do it all the same and women are consistently on the fight for women’s rights (including those doing it right or not). Understanding and developing strategies to deal with the fights on the different niches without throwing a straight jacket sledge punch on all on the other side. This should be the way, because more often than not, these attacks may just lead to people doing what is in their mind for fear of backlash, giving people figurehead opportunities for the sake of “National peace” and maintaining guerrilla misogynistic efforts difficult to smoke out.

If we want to fight, let us fight well.

I agree that we naturally have roles on both sides of the gender, but we should be allowed the freedom to choose the ones we want to pick up without someone trying to impose a form of freedom I am not in sync with. The best you can do is explain, help me to understand leave me to choose.

While the methods are different, some violent, some calm and others a mix of the two depending; as much as the quest is equality in terms of responsibility and opportunities, I am game. If this is how we define feminism, I am proudly a feminist. However, some of these energies should be devoted to helping women to build the capacity to fill the positions that open up with more renewed calls for equal opportunities. This is because if we get a lot more renewed calls for openings than capable hands; incapable hands who take on these positions may reinforce the narrative we are trying to correct. I am open to supporting initiatives that help more women build these necessary skills and value set.

Again, if fighting for equal rights, opportunities and responsibilities for all genders is what Feminism is all about; then I am a feminist and all in but any effort aimed at painting men as opponents to be conquered or limiting the access of equally qualified men for opportunities in the context of favouring one gender over the other, then I am not.

This is my manifesto.