The Politics of Pretty: Feminity and Fuckability

Take up Space – Temmie Ovwasa

The Angels sing Hallelujah,
While your Body bends,
Your left Leg over his right Shoulder,
Your right Leg around his Waist,
You wait for it to be over ,
Like you wait every Night,
You count the usual One to Ten,
You do this Eighteen times,
and then it’s over.

You know,
To him You’re just a Body with a Hole, His Ego is bigger than his Heart,
His Ego does nothing for your Body,
His Ego does nothing for your Soul,
But He tells you once again,
Maybe if your Legs could bend some more,
Without the Flesh of your protruding Belly getting in the way,
Maybe He’d actually be interested in staying a little longer,
In actually pleasing You.

So you make up your Mind,
Just like you did the Night before and the One before that,
To shed more Dead Weight,
To be more flexible,
To wear more Makeup
To be more “Fuckable”.
But no matter how much you bend yourself for Him,
He’ll still never bother to please You.

But You learnt this from your Mother,
Didn’t you?
To bend yourself for any Man that finds You worthy enough to grace his Bed,
To shrink yourself for any Human that finds you Good enough to fit into their Life;
They say You take up a lot of Space,
So if they create Room for You,
It’s a favor.

Your Meals got Smaller,
Your Demons got Bigger,
Your Weight, Heavier;
Darling, Despair weighs a lot more than Body Fat,
Every Inch of your Skin is glorious.

And I swear by the Angels your Mother prays to,
You’ve always been Beautiful,
You’ve always been Worthy.
Take up Space,
Please,
Take up Space.

©Temmie Ovwasa

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: Truth-butes (II)

Editor’s Note: Day two of curating the tributes and thoughts of African feminists about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (26th September 1936 – 2nd April 2018).

As expected there are a lot of disrespectful narratives shared on several platforms downplaying Winnie’s role in the liberation of South Africa, bringing home the importance of the alternative voices insisting on telling her story as is.

I was silent for quite a while before I could even attempt to unknot my feelings.

The only person whose legitimacy I have ever recognized as Mother of a nation.

‘I am me; I am black; I must be proud of my blackness. – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Winnie Mandela was a woman of outstanding courage. She kept Mandela’s name alive for 27 eternal years and helped create the myth of the unseen Mandela. When Mandela gained freedom, Winnie had to be torn down in order to create a new Mandela myth. A woman’s lot. Rest in Power.

“I am not [Nelson] Mandela’s product. I am the product of the masses of my country and the product of my enemy.” ~Mama Winnie Mandela

Thabo Mbeki had better keep quiet.

And my, something that is not often remarked upon: Winnie Mandela was a great beauty.

‘Are you aware she used violence,’ someone tweets at me.

As if the men that took part in the guerrilla struggle went into the bush to eat scones.

I have today avoided going to the great world news sites to read their obituaries of Winnie Mandela, something I would ordinarily do. They are too invested in a skewed narrative of Winnie. So, I quarantine myself of them. And I am watching not CNN but SABC’s respectful coverage.

Goodnight, Winnie Mandela
On this day I tried
To reclaim the narrative.
I kept the faith.
And you,
You tried.
You did.
Goodnight, Winnie Mandela.
#RestInPower

Molara Wood. Writer, Cultural Activist, Feminist.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: Truth-butes

Editor’s Note: Over the next few days we’ll be curating the tributes and thoughts of African feminists about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (26th September 1936 – 2nd April 2018), her life and activism.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

RIP Winnie Mandela, you indomitable spirit, sleep tight. You live on.
Here is Winnie in her own words: “The overwhelming majority of women accept patriarchy unquestioningly and even protect it, working out the resultant frustrations not against men but against themselves in their competition for men as sons, lovers and husbands. Traditionally the violated wife bides her time and off-loads her built-in aggression on her daughter-in-law.So men dominate women through the agency of women themselves.” Let’s share her words before CNN, Sky, BBC and White South African media machinery do it for us.

In reference to Winnie, people should stop saying, ‘obviously she was imperfect’. Erh, imperfection is part of what makes us human or did people forget the memo? Or is it only applicable to black women? Till you can present a perfect human, shut up!!

And then when you say, ‘she is a complicated figure’, do you want her to be simple and bland? The starting point of our discourse about her life should not be that she was ‘an imperfect or complicated figure’, that should be assumed – she is human damn it!

Let’s talk about what she made possible precisely because of her imperfection and complexity. Let’s talk about her challenge to the rule of the father (black and white), let’s talk about her confrontation with white supremacy and her rejection of the Christian notion of truth and reconciliation, let’s talk about how she responded to a violent and violating system and see what lesson we can learn from it today. Yes, let’s talk about how she handled power and agency. But please don’t go be saying she is a complicated and imperfect figure. She deserves better!

The Curious Case of D S Fapson and the Taxify Driver

On the 25th January, actress Dorcas Shola Fapson, accused, via some Snapchat posts, a Taxify driver of attempted kidnap and rape. Within 24 hours, the driver had posted a contrary account and Fapson had provided further details, including video footage of the incident – such is the power and urgency of social media these days.

I’ve found the public’s reaction to these accounts bewildering. Polarised opinions are the order of the day on social media but this case feels special. There have been disagreements on not just the story as a whole or who was right but also, the individual events which make up the story.

The only thing that everyone agrees on is that Fapson booked and entered a taxi, the trip ended badly and that pepper spray was involved. The driver says that the disagreement started when she refused to reveal her destination whereupon he stopped the trip, moved the car forward – an action which took him a few seconds – and tried to retrieve his car keys from her.

She says he tried to insist on an unregistered cash payment instead of a card payment with the company as booked, refused to take her to her destination or let her out of the car when she declined, drove her to unknown premises, tried to drag her into the building, threatened and assaulted her with a choke hold, closed the car door on her legs etc. Even stranger than the irreconcilable accounts is the focus on baying for Fapson’s blood (and anyone who tries to support her), without acknowledging these factual disparities.

While Fapson’s initial account was at first met with disgruntled silence and followed by demands for evidence, the driver’s post connected with Nigerian Twitter. Perhaps it was the perceived class differences between them but I think the real basis of the simmering rage and public outcry is the belief that this is yet another example of a woman weaponising the ability to accuse a man of rape for her own evil purposes.

The outcry fails to take into account of the fact that Fapson’s video evidence refutes some of the claims made by the driver. An example is the driver’s claim that he only drove a few yards down the road to take advantage of some security lighting. The video clearly shows him driving her to a set of gates, she stating that she doesn’t know where she is and he not counteracting that statement. He gets out of the car and hurried towards the gates, leaving his keys in the ignition (providing an answer to the stupid question ‘why would he leave his keys in the car if he meant to kidnap her?’).

The video also shows him trying to keep her in the car, rather than his account of repeatedly and politely asking her to alight and only engaging her physically to retrieve his car keys.
This is confusing because, while one could build a narrative that when she refused to get out of the car like he asked her to, he drove off to his house in frustration, reached the gates and then tried to chuck her out of the car, I can’t think of any reason he would want to keep her in the car. If he was so worried about his car, like he claimed, surely that would increase the chances of her driving off.

We do eventually hear him trying to drag her (but this is after she had asked him to let her out of the car – did he change his mind about keeping her in or was he trying to drag her on to the premises?) and we don’t see the choke hold of course. There are those better qualified than me to untangle the facts and perhaps they will get a chance to do so.

Instead of a discussion about the facts, the initial, and sustained, reaction has been one of massive outrage that Fapson dared to label this driver a rapist.

I believe this discussion sheds some light on two aspects of rape culture – the concerted effort to discredit rape and sexual assault victims for the purpose of silencing them and women who actually make false accusations that they have been raped.

In relation to the discrediting, rape is, of course, a difficult crime to prove and one way of the most effective methods for stopping victims from coming forward, is the threat that, should a conviction not occur or even before any charge is laid or prosecution carried out, the victims will be forever labelled ‘evil women’ willing to ruin lives for no justifiable reason.

If this fear affects conventional victims (raped by strangers after violence or the threat of violence), it becomes scarier when a victim has been raped by family members, close friends, relationship partners, dates or colleagues.

The silencing is perpetuated, not just by immediately assuming that the victim is lying, it includes dragging out past, unrelated sexual liaisons, slut shaming, purity culture (a woman is spoiled by sexual activity anyway – who cares whether it’s consensual or not?), spiritual blackmailing (if you don’t forgive that deacon for molesting you, aren’t you really as bad as him in Jesus’ eyes?) and questioning why she chose to drive a man to such a sexual peak that he could not help but attack her.

The culture of silencing victims is clearly traumatising and is the major reason so many victims keep quiet.

Some of these tools/weapons have already been deployed against Fapson. It is being claimed that she once begged a male singer to start a relationship with her to increase her celebrity status– information related to this incident…how?

Many people are very much aware of the above issues. While we know that too many sexual assaults go unreported because of silencing tactics, we also acknowledge that it is a terrible and devastating thing to falsely accuse a man of rape. Although it’s only fair to point out the inconsistency between Nigerians describing, on social media, the effects of rape and the effects of being accused of rape.

If a man is assumed to be falsely accused of rape, then it is a horrendous thing that will destroy his life, presumably because rape is such a terrible thing. If a man is actually proven to have raped someone then we should forgive him because everyone makes mistakes, do we want to kill him, did he kill someone, what was she wearing ……??

Anyway! False claims do happen and apart from tearing a hole through a man’s life, they drag the fight against rape and rape culture backwards. The next victim will always be prejudiced by a false rape claim.

Despite the fact that the movement for dismantling the rampant rape culture and addressing the high occurrence of sexual assaults in Nigeria is relatively new, it seems Nigerians have had enough of rape allegations already. No woman is allowed to utter the words ‘rape’ or ‘rapist’ – unless:-
(1) it has happened – I won’t bother adding ‘or is about to happen’ as, in this case, even if the attack had been in an advanced stage, some would still have insisted that Fapson could have avoided it by being polite, begged or time travelled to choose a better outfit;
(2) you have ample evidence of being raped and you are prepared to paste the evidence all over social media;
(3) you are prepared to attend a police station, even though numerous women have reported sexual assault carried out by Nigerian police officers and their reprehensible attitude towards rape victims;
(4) you never withdraw your complaint because, for the price of bringing a potentially good man down, you should be prepared to accept any and all threats to your being;
of course (5) you were the perfect rape victim – dressed modestly, not roaming the streets at night, polite and respectful to all involved, with a propensity for sprinting.

Even if you have been able to do all these and go on about it too much, Nigerian twitter will advise you to move on with your life and have some dignity for God’s sake!

There is clearly some panic about women wielding their power and privilege to cry rape at any every instance and this panic, I would suggest, is nothing new whenever there is a concerted effort to address sexual crimes. Hopefully it will pass but, when you compare the reaction to Fapson to the reaction to Kemen in BBNaija (https://talkglitz.tv/nigerians-blast-bbnaija-for-continuous-association-with-kemen-tag-him-rapst/) in April of last year, the real crime appears to be broadcasting a rape or rape attempt rather than committing one, according to Nigerian Social Media.

I hate to drag out the past but for those who don’t know the Kemen story, he was a Big Brother Nigeria contestant who was disqualified for sexually assaulting a sleeping female housemate . The real debate began after the programme concluded and Kemen was invited to join the housemates on various publicity tours and effectively resumed his status as a celebrity reality show contestant. I was grimly satisfied when the ‘woke’ people whom I follow recognised this as an outrageous endorsement of the lack of consequences for sexual assault in Nigeria. Imagine my horror and bitterness when I learned that the #freekemen contingent were not only in the majority but felt that the incident being brought to public knowledge was punishment enough and that Kemen should be allowed to flourish free from these Godless, unforgiving, judgmental people who insisted on dragging out issues that should be allowed to die down, after all ‘did he kill somebody?’ and also what was she wearing…?

Back to the recent incident, perhaps there are other ways in which Fapson could have made the incident known, if you ignore how shocking that night must have been for her. With the benefit of hindsight, maybe she could have started with a fuller account instead of short posts and labelling – but I can’t see anything wrong in her letting people know about this event, if only to stop other women from going through the same thing.

On a related subject, I notice, in addition to women who make false rape allegations, another group of women who have been condemned in this incident – women who have accused Fapson of making the whole thing up. Fapson dramatically said ‘I hope far worse happens to you, your mother and your unborn children’. Lord. Simi, in a deleted post echoing some of the sentiments that Adekunle Gold had expressed and also deleted due to the backlash from his followers (They said what to you on Twitter, Kunle? Hold my beer…..), also singled them out as being particularly reprehensible.

It is especially dispiriting when women defend sexism, rape culture and the like. It’s even worse when they take part in sexual attacks. It is surprising, as well, given that they could more readily be a victim of what they are undertaking in or failing to condemn. But I’ve always wondered (but never voiced aloud) about the claim that they are ‘worse than the men’?

It is bad for both women and men to fail to address or participate in rape culture. Men do it because of the obvious privileges of being able to act badly or not without many consequences; women do it to align with or identify with the conventional society, to cement their status as ‘good or sensible women’ and ‘not one of these crazy feminists’ and probably for other reasons, like protecting themselves against male (out) rage or even maybe because they genuinely believe what they are saying. Both have their reasons and both are equally bad, in my view.

Messages, Misogyny and Nigerian Entertainment: Part 1

 Chimamanda Adichie once said that feminism is not a cloak that she puts on and takes off as the circumstances suit. I’m afraid that when it comes to enjoying Nigerian entertainment, whether its comedy, films, music, or blogs, I often have to take that cloak right off, put it aside and cover it with another cloak, for good measure.One thing I hear a lot, in response to Nigerian feminism, is why do they have to be so angry, rude, unpleasant? My question is this: Is it possible to be a Nigerian feminist and NOT be angry.  So much of Nigerian entertainment (and virtually everything else) has a gloss of the most blatant sexism that, let me tell you, unless I take off that cloak, I’m foaming at the mouth half the time.
Just for the heck of it, I’ll take a deep breath and try to narrow down the things that make my blood boil into a tidy list.
1. The gold-digging narrative. Comedy and comedic music are especially guilty of this. Apparently, a woman will be the most appalling bitch until you ‘show her the money’ at which point she will turn into the sweetest thing who will forgive you and give you anything. When I say woman, I don’t mean ‘good woman’, of course. A good woman, upon setting eyes on you, will apparently sell her siblings to put you through school so you can reward her by marrying her and keeping her in the background for the rest of her life, but that’s another topic.My thoughts on this? If there is a high incident of gold-digging among Nigerian women (and I’d like to see the statistics please), it’s for 2 reasons – the Nigerian economy has been messed up for a long time and pussy is easy to sell. You better believe that if dick was as easy to sell in Nigeria, these men would be balancing it on their heads like Olajumoke the bread seller.What makes me so bitter is not that very few people acknowledge the role men play in these transactions. It’s the fact that if a young woman decides to work hard at university and her job to make her money, there’s a high chance that she will be subjected to so much sexual harassment (what’s the penalty for that, in Nigeria, I wonder) from her lecturers, employers and company clients that she might be left wondering whether it wasn’t just easier to sleep with that rich married man in the first place.

2. The use of hoe/slut/pom/karashika/Jezebel (the born-again version) and other variations. Those words have become meaningless nouns to describe a range of women from a paid sex worker to a woman who annoyed you at the bus stop to a woman who has exactly the same morals as the man calling her a hoe. It’s an age-old tactic to demonise women, justify bad treatment of women, keep the ‘Madonnas’ separate from the ‘whores’ and to get other women to buy into the division, as long as they get to be the Madonnas . It started with witches in the Middle Ages and got down to bitches. It doesn’t actually mean anything. Eldee, in a recent twitter rant, called Amber Rose and Kim Kardiashian hoes (actually he said ‘hoe ambassador’ which I thought was rather clever) but in reality they are just women that seem to have normal sex/relationship lives but like to, for some reason, put their naked bodies on blast. Lesson: It doesn’t mean anything, those words are just used to scare women into ‘behaving’.

3. Don’t get it twisted. Some women will act the damn fool for no apparent reason. In Nigeria,  when a woman acts  crazy, not only is she labelled for life, society immediately identifies an imaginary pack of women, who all apparently behave the same way, and labels them accordingly. The woman isn’t just a bitch – she’s one of them ‘bitches’. When a man behaves terribly, he’s a ‘work in progress’ and ‘God is still working on him’ because you know ‘anything is possible with Jesus’.

4. Male celebrities who loudly and repeatedly insist they want a hard working woman, how they can’t stand “laziness in a woman” and how she should bring something (usually money) to the table. For a while, I couldn’t really figure out what irritated me so much about these statements. I don’t actually buy into the whole idea that the man is the main ‘provider’ in a marriage or relationship.Apart from the implication that women are naturally lazy gold-diggers (see above), what bugs me about this statement? Reading an interview with a popular Kenyan actor who has made similar statements, the light bulb suddenly flicked on. He was asked if he could cook and he said no. No. Without apology or explanation. So what does he expect to be doing so while his wife is out there hustling for her half of the moolah and she calls him. “Honey, I have a late meeting, could you give the kids their tea and put them in bed” – “Ah, but you know, I can’t cut onion without you…..”There are 2 things going on here. Firstly domestic work, usually the domain of women in Nigeria and the rest of the world, is being devalued. It doesn’t matter how well she keeps your home and your children and how much that enables you to be the successful person you are, if she isn’t earning, she’s a leech. Secondly, you want her to continue her traditional female role (I mean you may help out but the home is her ‘responsibility’), and then somehow go out and have the same earning power as you have. Bonus point: You want her to be financially independent while you remain domestically dependent.Some (must always remember to say ‘some’) of the guys have a really good gig here. They get to shame women for being poor or gold diggers while ignoring the factors that keep women from making money – less job opportunities, getting paid less for the same job, sexual harassment or coercion at work, hours spent on doing all the domestic work. And also! They’ve decided that domestic work isn’t worth anything while carefully avoiding it themselves! Hurrah!

To be continued…

 

Tracy Ofarn

 

Feminism is not for perfect people

Dearest Friend and Feminist, ‎

Feminism is not for perfect people. Come with your flaws. Come with your quirks. Come with your peculiarities. Come with your religious beliefs and come with everything you have, and as you are. Don’t be roped into thinking that you need be perfect or fit into ‘one of a kind’ mould before you can identify with this movement/ideology. This is not that place.

Be spurred by injustice. Be spurred by inequality. Be spurred by a broken heart and be spurred by love. Whatever your reason for identifying with feminism, embrace it. It is valid.‎

This idea of who a ‘good feminist’ is or who a ‘bad one’ is, simply muddles the irrefutable diversity of human differences and experiences and you know what else, it attempts at equating your feminism with some behavioural codes. I’m not a good feminist and I am not a bad feminist. I’m simply a feminist, one influenced by my environment, personal character and inherent quirks. I will be good somedays and I will be very bad some other days. We cannot all be the same and there is no one shade of this ideology.‎

And something else, when you’re called a Facebook(Twitter) Feminist, accept that tag proudly. There is something called Digital Activism and social media is as valid as any other mode of activism. The digital world is as real as the offline world. The work you do online is valuable as the offline work. This is our reality. Digital conversations are making much impact as non-digital conversations. Anyone who undermines the influence of this space is living in the rocks. Social media is real and it’s influence is real. And whether your advocacy is just online, that is valid.‎

You need nothing else except the drive for fairness and equality of all persons. You will make mistakes because you’re human and don’t think it will subtract from your right to identify with feminism.

Your existence is larger than one ideology you identify with. There is more to you. You contain multitudes.‎

You’re allowed to be flawed, contradictory, messy and confused. Don’t ever submit yourself to some purity test of what qualifies or disqualifies your feminism. There is no appointed feminist police to scrutinise your authenticity. Own that label and stumble around, make your mistakes and learn from them. And don’t be too concerned with the superficiality of your preferences; whether you love or hate men, or whether you like or detest make up, or whether you dress as a tomboy or a Madonna, or whether you enjoy erotic or Shakespearean books. 

Never attempt to organise your entire life into ‘feminist acts’ or ootherwise. Your life is fluid. And don’t be too concerned about the people who have an entire script of what you should be doing or how you should live as a Feminist when they are doing none of that. If they were genuine, they will lead the way and show you ‘the right way’ but their true intentions is that they are here to discredit you. Keep doing your thing. And if you’re bad, well half a loaf is better than no loaf.‎

In conclusion, acknowledge that you’re making a change, nothing else matters. Go eat some ice-cream or baileys and if you’re a Nigerian, indulge yourself this very long weekend/holiday starting now! Go and prosper or see a movie.

All the love in my heart.‎

Feminism 101 – The Basics

Feminism, women and sometimes men have expressed it through their art, policy-making, and scientific theories. In and of itself, feminism is both personal and public(?), but the basic tenet of women’s rights remains unchanged. So whilst one may not call oneself a feminist, one’s choice(s) may be. As has been said many times before, the feminists that came before us enable us to make the choices that we do.

Feminism has recently become a hot-button topic, thanks to the likes of Chimamanda Adichie, Beyonce and many more. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around as to what feminism is or isn’t.  This article aims to provide a brief overview of Feminism, not an in-depth analysis.

With all that out of the way, let’s start:

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, feminism is:

1:  the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2:  organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

The modern-day feminist movement, started in the West during the 1800s, said movement can be divided into three eras. They are the first, second and third wave;

First Wave: This era covers the 1800’s to the mid-1900s, voting and property rights were the main concern of this first wave.

Second Wave: From the mid-1960s to the 1980s -some sources put the end at the early 1990s- a new era of emerged in the feminist movement. A main concern was reproductive rights.

Third Wave: The most recent era started in the late 1980s/early 1990s, intersectionality is an important concern of this era.

During the aforementioned eras, different forms of feminism emerged; some of them are:

Womanism

Third world feminism/Post-colonial feminism

Islamic feminism

Christian feminism

Socialist feminism

Sex-positive feminism

The following are arguably the most relevant to the Nigerian condition:

Womanism: This form of feminism addresses the lack of representation of African-American women in the mainstream American feminist movement.

Post-colonial feminism: Deals with the feminist movement in the “Third-world” i.e. formerly colonized countries, as most feminist discourse is filtered through a Western lens.

All of the above fall under the umbrella of feminism; sometimes they’re in step with one another, at other’s they at cross-purposes. This is to remind one that there’s no one way to be a feminist and we all don’t have to agree on the method(s) to reach our common goal of women’s rights.

At the end of the day, feminism can be personal but it is necessary, get in where you fit in.

-Emike