Today is the International Day of the boy and this year’s theme is focused on Empowering, guiding, and providing boys role models for a peaceful world. Over the years, it seemed like more people focused on training girls to be perfect while boys were left to meander through life on their own. As a result, so many men had to learn a lot of things the hard way. Many of them grew up broken and didn’t have anyone to turn to or ask questions. For decades, men were even told not to cry because it was unmanly. So, they bottled up their insecurities and fears. As years progressed, we have…
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Birthday Reflections 2020
AND SO THE CLOCK STRIKES A NEW YEAR! Well, the earth has gone around the sun for a whole year since I last marked my birth. Here I am again, a year older. I decided to mark this year in an unusual matter. I want to openly reflect on how the past year has been for me. The past year has been filled to the brim with lots of ups and downs. There were good times and not-so-good times. Compared to previous years, I have been molded than I could ever account for this last year. I am grateful for the progress I have made. I am remorseful for the…
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The Resentment targeted against Gender Advocates: We are also fighting a just cause
I am active on social media. There, I get to table my thoughts, and share my views with like-minded individuals, receive criticism on my advocacy from genuine critics, and get tongue-lashed by narrow-minded humans. Yet, it is what it is. I am used to the cycle, too. Recently, I was on Twitter, and I came across someone who, basing his argument on the global suspension of football no thanks to coronavirus, argued that more feminists will become busy bees about advocacy, trying to win more hearts over to the cause. And from the precedents of his tweeted argument and the succeeding tweets, you could tell he had an ax to grind…
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Why Some Women don’t like the term ‘Wife Material’?
A lot of people, including me, have never been comfortable with the “Wife-Material” tag. The reasons are quite glaring. When an average Nigerian calls you a wife material, they mean that you are a perfect definition of society’s stereotypical woman. They see you as someone who is living a script, not necessarily as someone whose personality they admire, but someone who would fit into the descriptions of someone else’s future demands. Wife material, in the view of many, is a measure of how domesticated a woman is. It seems that is all a woman entails as if women should fit into a box the society has designed for…
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Changing Gender Stereotypes taught in School
From childhood, many people unconsciously start learning stereotypes (a widely-held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing). It starts with the illustrations in our primary school textbooks. A doctor is usually a man and a nurse a woman. A bank manager is typically a man, and the secretary or cleaner is a woman. At such a young age, these pictures and words create lasting impressions that, in some cases, are never shattered. This is why many people assume that any woman in a white ensemble in a hospital is a nurse. It doesn’t matter if she is the one in the consulting…
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Men Picking Up The Gauntlets 3!!!
As a gender advocate, I have had people ask me what about advocating for men. They ask: “Isn’t gender equality all about gender balance? Why am I always throwing the spotlight on women or highlighting women’s issues.” I smile and tell them that I speak about girl child and women issues because I have first-hand experience of a lot of the things I talk about. As a woman, I know what it means to live in a patriarchal society. I know to a large extent, the power those stereotypes can wield over people’s perceptions. That is why I am fighting really hard to change them in our girls’/women’s minds and…
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Amazons – Precious Gaza
The month of March is Women’s history month – a month dedicated to celebrating women who have contributed or are currently contributing their quota to gender equality, the betterment of humanity and to the society. Today, I would like to shine my spotlight on Precious Gaza, an International relations graduate, an emotional intelligence coach and, a girl child education advocate. In this piece she bares it all giving us an insight into how advocacy has been for her as a Nigerian woman. She talks about how she started advocacy, and the challenges so far. She also tells us what inspired her to become an emotional intelligence coach and how life…
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World Poetry Day – Celebrating Womanhood
Give me a voice, one that I can call mine Let me bring out my colours from in deep within my mind like a flowering flower springing new petals. I only ask for a choice to be who I am without the tethers of gender hurting around my tender neck. Give me a life, a chance, to crave for and seek the cradle of wisdom like the river seeking the sea. I want to learn to fight without a hand tied behind my back with the chains of culture, what should change that stayed constant. For I am a light, hidden by the curtains of doubt. Yet, none can douse…
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The Power of Equal Representation
THE POWER OF EQUAL REPRESENTATION Imagine attending a meeting with another firm only to discover all the representatives of such a firm are males. As a 21st-century human, it should get you thinking: “Is it that they don’t have women in this organization?” I have had a series of discussions with people regarding this and many people say that of course they would love more women on board but not at the detriment of competence. I understand correctly. I always reply that I am not a fan of incompetence or mediocrity. Still, I have observed that many times, people organize programs without female speakers or facilitators. It makes one wonder…
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International Women’s Day 2020- Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights for an Equal Future
Every year, March 8 marks the International Women’s Day. A day set aside by the United Nations to celebrate women and advocate women’s rights and gender equality. This year’s theme is Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights for an equal future. This year we are choosing to be that generation that finally realized or achieves gender equality by giving women their due diligence. We finally recognize that women’s rights are also human rights and therefore matter equally. To be able to think this way, we have to truly understand what gender equality is. Gender equality is not sameness in biology or physiology. (This is the fallacious assertion that some people point…
