Nigerian Patriarchy, American Patriarchy

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - 

America (read: The US) is a patriarchy.

Nigeria is a patriarchy.

America strongly discourages polygamy, domestic violence, spousal rape and other acts which denigrate the self-worth of the female person.

Beyond a sociological aversion for all these, America creates and maintains institutional agencies to push her cultural preferences, so that even though she remains a patriarchy, the birth of a female child is not as tantamount to a mild tragedy which must be endured and borne stoically at best, as most in Nigeria have been forced over time to see it as in our enclave.

America is a patriarchy.

Nigeria is a patriarchy.

The American legal system won't let anyone on their soil withdraw their underaged daughter and go marry her off to a man because she is a girl.

In patriarchal America.

No cultural paradigm can be foolproof as they are results and by-processes of conscious evolution of a developing species.

"Dear Ijeawele": Adichie's Feminist Manifesto

Photo Source: Dreamstime.com

(By Chimamanda Adichie)--“DEAR IJEAWELE, OR A FEMINIST MANIFESTO IN FIFTEEN SUGGESTIONS”

Dear Ijeawele,

What joy. And what lovely names: Chizalum Adaora. She is so beautiful. Only a day old and she already looks curious about the world. Your note made me cry. You know how I get foolishly emotional sometimes. Please know that I take your charge – how to raise her feminist – very seriously. And I understand what you mean by not always knowing what the feminist response to situations should be. For me, feminism is always contextual. I don’t have a set-in-stone rule; the closest I have to a formula are my two ‘Feminist Tools’ and I want to share them with you as a starting point.

The first is your premise, the solid unbending belief that you start off with. What is your premise? Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only.’ Not ‘as long as.’ I matter equally. Full stop.

The second tool is a question: can you reverse X and get the same results?