Sexism, Diapers, and Making it Work in Lagos

Adibeli Nduka-Agwu

(By Adibeli Nduka-Agwu) - Sexism, Diapers and Making it Work in Lagos 

It was my first week in Lagos, squeezing in a workout at the hotel gym, when a pudgy business man I had met earlier entered and started staring. Somewhat irritated I asked: “Sorry, can I help you?” He leaned closer and beamed: “It’s ok… I just enjoy watching you sweat.” My workout was over, my work life had begun.

I left the West three years ago to work across Lagos, Johannesburg and Nairobi expanding iROKOtv.com, “The Netflix of Africa”. I’ve had male counterparts refuse to speak to me (one physically closed his eyes until my male subordinate spoke); I was asked by a male client in a packed meeting room if he could sit on my lap, and the number of business men that hoped they could conclude our deal in their hotel room is endless. Sexism has followed me to Lagos like a virus: unwanted yet unshakable. Yet (and this may surprise some), I would argue that being a woman in Lagos has felt like LESS of a career barrier for me in my work compared to my time in North America or Europe.

How Not to Underestimate a Girl

The Mighty Miss Malone; Credit: barnesandnoble.com

(By Nkechi Bianze) - 

Part 1:
Between 1996-1997, I was in Primary 4.
I did my first term primary 4 in a school at Isolo, Lagos.

I remember getting there to notice that all the three top positions in class had been colonized by three boys, who held on to them like those positions were their birthrights.

There was also another new student in class.

There were some common factors between me and this other new student.
1. We were both girls.
2. We were both from outside Lagos. While I came from Delta State, she came from Anambra State.

I don’t know whether Lagos residents still live in this sort of delusion. But in those days, many Lagos residents actually had the complex that Lagos was the London of Nigeria. Many of them believed that everyone who lives outside Lagos lives in a village, and is not as civilized as them Lagos residents. And even those who lived in Lagos ghettos, swamps and gutter houses also lived in same delusion. 😏