The International Writers Magazine: Comment

Why Gender Equality Is A Problem For The African Woman • Odimegwu Onwumere

As many a people are against the agitation for gender egalitarianism by the feminists, so also I am against any father who deprives his female children their fundamental human rights because they are girls, or any mother who deprives her male children of their fundamental human rights because they are boys.

In June, I wrote an article that was published in our dailies titled: “Surname: Why Not Mother’s Surname?” that article welcomed a lot of thanks from readers but mainly the thanks were replete from the women’s side, because the issue I addressed in that article concerned them. I regret that I could not answer the question of one man who called my line asking what could be done to influence the right of the girl-child in our society, because my cell phone was a shocker. It has outlived its purchased money. But my advice to the man is, perhaps it was only female children he has and did not intend to marry again, he should will all his property to them. (Lawyers are in the better position to advise him). So, when the world’s people sees him no more, his relatives won’t be intimidating the wife and children, thereby causing them turn abject destitutes.

In the African traditions and as well in the Christendom, except by false interpretations of the two traditions, I don’t think that any of the traditions allow women headship, except by permission and in the kind of government called Democracy, which effect we have seen in part of Europe where woman is a ‘king’.

The human head allowed the word, democracy run in their senses more than it’s boldly written on the Dictionary. More democracy now runs in our blood and in our veins than we could possibly explain. It is this government that brought about the axiom: “What a man can do, a woman can do better”, by the feminists. There is no right thinking mother or woman who can subscribe to that axiom, because unveiling literarily, what men do, women can’t try them, let alone, do it better.

This axiom has brought divvy into many married homes today. The issue of headship is no more found in our homes, because the African woman is fighting for equality with the men.

Any right thinking woman has to give the men respect, likewise any right thinking man has to love the woman. The measure of success of any (man) husband is not by mental or physical ability to make money, but by the loving and kind way he treats his wife and children.

The advent of “what a man can do, a woman can do better”, by the feminists, has created the spirit of disrespect in wives for their husbands and in girls for the boys resulting to the men now treating the women with poorly rated love and shelve the issue of “weaker vessel” by the side, which women no longer believe today they are.

This slogan has corrupted the minds of these women that respects for their husbands and the role a mother is supposed to play in the house are now thrown into the bins for the much touted “gender equality”. This is why many homes today are comatosed because the headship principle was not applied. And the family could not find success, love, peace and happiness, which are factors that shouldn’t lack in marriage.

As men have been assigned the headship, if the feminists like it or not, I don’t subscribe to a man dominating his wife, as many men commonly do, without blinking an eyelid. Man should assign the wife honour, treat her as a prized possession, and consider her feelings, always treating her as a human being who also deserves respect and dignity.

And, also, in all these, the woman should not forget that the proverbial goat that wanted to be fat as the cow had its anus bursted.

Elaborations are much in my head, but I will close this article with the knowledge in 1 Peter 3: 3:7, “rather a man to harshly dominate the wife, he should assign her honour as to a ‘weaker vessel’, the feminine one”. This is a note the African woman should understand and use. It was not written in Africa or by Africans, but on the marble of history. So, Gender Equality: Why A Problem For African Woman?

Why Not Mother's Surname?
Odimegwu Onwumere
Life for the African wife is hard with little reward

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