LIVING WITH A FEMINIST By Kola Tubosun

You know, it was just last week that I was reading this piece that lampoons writers for usually failing to fully acknowledge in public the help that a stable spouse provides. I thought about how true it is. We’d rather tell the world how hardworking we are, and how much we suffered before we made it big, forgetting how much harder (if not impossible) it would have been without someone there in a capacity of a trusted companion. Why is this? Because we consider ourselves failures if we had to depend on others? Because a man can’t admit that his wife earns as much (or more) than he does, and still retain his manhood? Because admitting such as a woman amounts to betraying feminism? None of it is true, of course, but contemporary society tells us otherwise.

I am a Nigerian, the father of a one year old. I live in Lagos, in an area conducive to a contemplative temperament, close enough to my workplace, and close enough to the venues of artistic contemplation that I’ve spent a number of years pursuing. I work as a schoolteacher of English (and coordinator of a number of literary-related activities), and in my other free time as a linguist, and founder of a translation company/community. But more than these, I am the husband of a working woman, a feminist, who also doubles as the mother of our child and a co-breadwinner in the house. None of these things work at cross-purposes with the other.

The word “feminist” has been, from the time I encountered it in the eighties, loaded with a kind of fault: “Oh those bra-burning women revolutionaries in the West trying to become like men”. That is a paraphrasing of something I may have heard from my father once. But he’s not peculiar. Men of his generation grew up with a different idea about what women should be and what their role should be in the society. But not just the men. Women too. My mother might swear to you that she’s not a feminist, but it would be a cold day in hell before you walk over her just because you’re a man. And almost singlehandedly, she brought up the six of us sometimes without help, and in spite of a sometimes conscious non-cooperation by her spouse.

What I was thinking about when gathering thoughts about this piece is how in today’s world the tag has become even more toxic. And a friend would consider himself showing concern by asking you “I hope your wife is not one of those who call themselves feminists…” I’ve heard educated women call themselves “womanists” as well, as a way of escaping the negative tag that “feminism” supposedly carries. “I believe in women’s rights”, they say, “but I’m not a feminist” The way it seems then is that the difference between a woman (who, as one might expect, doesn’t believe in being relegated in society to any secondary role) and a feminist (who actively fights to secure that commitment from society) is the difference between a writer and a novelist. A writer enjoys the vocation, occasionally makes money from writing, while a novelist is committed to a cause in a particular direction. S/he writes novels, accepts the specific tag of “novelist” and defends the role of the genre against all others when called to do so. Most people seem content to be called “writers” than be called “novelists”. One requires not just effort, but a concrete proof of belonging to the class.

In the book “Fela: This Bitch of a Life” by Carlos Moore, there was a chapter where the author interviewed Fela Kuti’s first wife – a half British, half-Nigerian woman who lived with him lovingly through all his infidelities and sexual flamboyance. Asked about Fela’s authoritarian behaviour, she responds that “that’s how a husband should be.” She continues “I don’t believe in women’s lib at all. I mean I don’t believe a man should tell me I’m lower than him, but I don’t believe in me going to drive a bus. That’s left to a man, you know. Just that type of thing. These women in Europe, I don’t agree with at all.” (Kindle Location 2300). She was making a point about gender roles, but inadvertently about feminism that has insisted that women should be able to do whatever they want to do. She however wrongly assumed that it says that they should be mandated to do it.

My feminist wife isn’t interested in driving a bus either, and her feminism hasn’t kicked me out of the house, or deflated my balls just as my work and vocation hasn’t reduced her feminity or levels of estrogen. However, it has created an environment to bring up a young man with a different attitude to life than our parents afforded us: a world in which men and women can achieve their best selves at home, at work, and in the society without hindrance, and without obeisance to rules that have their roots in prejudice and fear rather than in fact. My daughter will be able to pay for her own meal even on a date without feeling taken advantage of. And my son will be able to make meals in the house, for his family, if he wants to (and if he’s as good a cook as his father) without feeling any shame.

I’m a feminist too, because I believe that a strong and fulfilled woman is as much an asset to the family as a strong and fulfilled man. I won’t have it any other way.

My Abortion Story – Eniitan

From the Editor: In an article titled The Case for Legal Abortion in Nigeria, Temi Giwa presented facts, figures, and strong reasons for legalizing abortion in Nigeria. One of the reasons she presented is that in spite of the fact that abortions are illegal in Nigeria, over 500,000 abortions are carried out annually. This figure was presented by Dr Obasanjo-Bello, the chairman of the Nigerian Senate Committee on health, but The Guttmacher Institute claims that the figure is higher, conservatively putting it at 610,000 abortions per year.

In this same article, Temi Giwa said that 142,000 women are treated for complications arising from abortions every year.

In 2013, women advocates all over Nigeria, jubilated when the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, signed into law a bill titled “Imo State Law of Nigeria Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) law No. 12”. on the surface this law prohibited all forms of violence, but embedded within it was a proviso authorizing abortion on demand.

Photography – Hertfordshire

There was an outcry from ‘Christians’ within the state, who have always promoted ‘abstinence’ and ‘morals’ as a way of curbing pregnancies outside of wedlock and within a few days the governor asked the State’s House of Assembly to repeal the law.

Our contributor, who wishes to remain anonymous, talks about her experience, her abortion.

Read on :-

I was pregnant, I was in my early twenties. I was broke.

The father? He’s not important in this story because this is the story of a foetus and I.

A young Nigerian girl of my age was supposed to be a virgin, the soul of purity. While you were growing up your first introduction to your yearnings for someone’s touch, for sex, was shame, you were NOT supposed to have those feelings, wanting to have sex was a thing of shame. So you rightly learn to associate sex with shame.

You were raised to be asexual, to be a sex object, desired by men. Men decide whether you are desirable or not, they decide your worth as a woman. The prettier you are, the higher the pedestal you are placed on. The prettier you are, the more unavailable you are, the more men want you.

As an object you have no right to feelings, you are supposed to meet one man, preferably the type described in Mills and Boons stories – the tall, dark, handsome and of course, rich man. You are supposed to FALL in LOVE with this man, the man is supposed to rescue you from a potential life of loneliness, of permanent singlehood and marry you.

You are NOT supposed to have sex. Even in the dark of the night when loneliness grips you and you instinctively reach out to feel a body next to you.

Your vagina is to be kept clean AT ALL TIMES, even if it means cleaning it with lime. You are not supposed to get wet at the mere sight of the object of your desire. The only time you are expected to have any kind of feeling is when a MAN, preferably your husband, is there beside you, when He wants to put his penis inside of you. Getting that dampness between your thighs is a SIN a mortal sin which is equal to DEATH.

So I broke all these taboos and slept with a man, who was not my HUSBAND. Not only did I become a slut, I also became pregnant!

Pregnancy is another thing entirely. Not only is it illegal in Nigeria, it is also considered a form of punishment by the society.

You’ve been a bad girl, you deserve to be pregnant, you deserve to have babies you cannot care for. You deserve to have your life ruined.

Women are bred to be carriers of babies. They are supposed to be receptacles of a man’s sperm. In biology classes, when you are being taught, along with about thirty other girls, about your body. You are taught about your REPRODUCTIVE organs. They are not called pleasure organs, these organs are supposed to be strictly for reproduction! Your breasts, nipples, vulva, your fallopian tubes… Nobody tells you about your nipples, the way they rise to attention when touched or kissed. Nobody ever mentions that the clitoris is the ultimate orgasm giver.

Even when the sexual act is being described, the biology teacher talks about how a man’s penis will rise, how he will ejaculate his spermatozoa into your tract so that those little devils can swim up to your eggs. The lecture is delivered in a voice that implies that this act is shameful, something to be done with a man in the dark recesses of the night, preferably under bedclothes, with your eyes averted in shame.

The man, ejaculates, the woman is laid out flat and bears it. You’re not supposed to enjoy sex, you’re not supposed to have orgasms.

And you daren’t ask your parents about sex! You’ll probably earn yourself a couple of slaps and lectures on how you should stay a virgin until marriage, because virgins are more valuable than non-virgins in the marriage market. You’re a thing, an object. You’ve been objectified from the moment the doctor looked between your thighs, spotted your vagina and announced to the world ‘it’s a girl!’

So there I was with this foetus inside me and the knowledge that I don’t want this foetus turning into a child, I cannot afford to have the foetus grow into a child because I can barely afford to feed myself. Do I actually want children?

I can hear some women saying stuff like, so why did you open your legs when you knew you weren’t ready? Like the Yoruba will say, “why did you r’edi (why did you do the grind) when you’re not ready.” The next question is ‘why didn’t you use a condom?’ but … nobody told you about condoms in those days, condoms are dirty. Good girls don’t carry condoms around, good girls don’t enter a pharmacy or a supermarket and looks into the eyes of the sales person and say ‘I want to buy a condom’ in those days. So you panic! Who would you tell? You daren’t tell your mother because you know she’d first strip you off with her tongue or any handy broom or stick – she might insist you have the baby, to ‘punish’ you.

So you start putting out feelers.

There’s always somebody who knows ‘somebody’ who’s had an abortion before. These people are without names or faces, because abortions are shameful things, abortions are like STDs … nobody ever admits to having one.

Then one of your friends comes to you with a slip of paper. On it is an address and the amount of money you need for the abortion. Not a single word is exchanged, not even a ‘thank you’ because you’re doing this to help out a friend in need, you are a good girl, good girls don’t get pregnant ‘outside of wedlock’.

The ‘doctor’ is a young man. He lives in a dingy building, there’s no light in this building. The doctor takes you into a semi-darkened room. He first asks for his money, after you give it to him and he counts it, he asks you the last time you’d ‘seen’ your period.

You tell him.

He asks if you’re absolutely sure because he needs to know the ‘exact’ date, so he can determine the ‘exact’ month of the baby.

He talks in a dead voice, a voice devoid of emotions. You’re a stupid girl who got pregnant.

You think about the last time you’d seen your period. You think about the fact that the ‘doctor’ was giving you some peculiar looks. You look straight back at him and say ‘yes I’m sure’ all the while wondering if you can trust him not to kill you.

You arrive at the conclusion that it will be a win-win situation, he kills you, you’re dead, who cares? You won’t be here to be shamed (yes, I was depressed, suicidal even).

Then you remember horror stories of girls who got infected and had their wombs removed, girls who can never have children again – another win-win … (I didn’t examine that feeling too closely).

He asks you again about your last period.

Yes, you’re sure that was your last period.

Then you remember HIV. You make a mental note to go for the test… but first things first…

The young man takes you to an even darker, dank room, the odour of something you can’t place your finger on, teasing your nose. He asks you to take off your jeans and panties, no don’t take off your t-shirt.

He asks you to lay on a long wooden table after laying a filthy, green wrapper on it. He asks you to lie on it, and spread your legs.

As you look into his immobile face and spread your legs, the self-hate nearly chokes you. Maybe it’s even better you die.

He spent some time mining for gold as he waited patiently for you to spread them wide enough. He palpates your stomach.

He’s not even fucking wearing gloves! You die inside, tears of humiliation, of shame roll down your face.

The tears stop as you feel something cold slide inside your vagina.

Please don’t make noise o! You don’t want the neighbours hearing you, he says as you feel something tearing your insides apart.

You open your mouth but nothing comes out. The pain is beyond anything you’ve ever felt before. It tears you apart. The pain goes on and on.

Don’t close your legs. His voice pierces your pain. Your head is bursting, you are sure you would die, you know this pain will kill you.

The pain goes on and on and on…

The pain is worse than closing a door on your index finger, worse than slicing your thumb with a sharp knife, worse than somebody punching you in the face…

At some point you must have fainted because the next time you open your eyes, he was standing in front of a basin you hadn’t noticed when you first entered the room, he was washing his hands. He was washing blood off his hands, your blood.

You’re bleeding.

He asks if you brought a pad. You shake your head numbly, it threatened to blow apart, so you stop shaking it.

He pulls an old toilet roll out of a drawer. He asks you to get dressed, he gives you the toilet roll, take as much as you want, he added generously.

You touch yourself, the blood is still gushing.

The bleeding will stop, please get up, you have to leave now. He unceremoniously pulls you off the table.

The pain clutched at your stomach as you tried to straighten up. But you refuse to make a sound, you absorb the pain, the pain is your punishment.

You unfold the toilet paper and roll it up, inserted the makeshift pad between your thighs. You pull on your underpants your trousers.

He gives you some pills and asks you to take them … when you get home.

You can’t remember how you left that dark space, you walk in a haze of pain. You board a taxi to your house. You half crawled into your room, on to your bed.

You find some water, swallow the pills, was about to roll back into bed when you realise your clothes are soaked with blood. Your blue jeans were now dark red, the edge of your yellow t-shirt spotting a thin line of red.

You pull off your clothes, half-crawled to your bathroom, pour water on yourself while leaning against the bathroom wall. You are crying, but nobody hears you. Nobody cares. You brought this on yourself, this pain.