Thursday, 28th March 2024
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You are most likely mistaken about gender

While speaking about homeland security, George “Gaffe” Bush once said, “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.”

Minna Salami

While speaking about homeland security, George “Gaffe” Bush once said, “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.”

Well, in contrast, I just want you to know that when we talk about gender, we’re really talking about gender.Which is to say, we are not just talking about women. Most people wrongly associate gender issues with women’s issues. I recall doing a degree in Gender Studies and when people asked what I was studying and I replied gender, they would nevertheless proceed to ask, “So, what is women’s studies about?”

It was baffling. In actual fact I was not interested in women’s studies alone or I would have chosen that course. Instead, I chose to study gender because I am interested in masculinity and femininity, in gender norms attributed to the male and female sexes, in the interaction –  the never-ending conflicts and also the opportunities to live together harmoniously – caused by gender roles.

What are those roles? The answer depends on many things, including the particular environment that you find yourself in. In a country like Nigeria, gender roles not only vary from region to region but they’re also shaped by our tetchy colonial past, and the education and religion that came with that predicament. Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world where, for example, women have reigned not only as queens but as kings. In fact, female kings such as Ahebi Ugbabe who ruled Igala in Igboland in the twentieth century are arguably a precursor to transgender (people who express their gender outside of the norm) discussions today.

However, Nigeria is also a country where, to give another example, if you are male you can pass your nationality to a non-Nigerian female through marriage. If on the other hand you are a Nigerian female, by all means set  your eyes on a non-Nigerian husband, but our legislation will always consider your marriage as one to a foreigner.

If you are female, gender roles such as housewife, the weaker sex, the shrinking violet, the bimbo etc. may be used to describe you. If you are male, the roles of provider, macho man, gentleman or rational thinker may be attributed to you. Furthermore, although gender norms are limiting for both sexes (e.g. men should never be vulnerable and women should never be bossy yada yada yada) since most powerful traits are seen to be masculine, if you are a woman there is perhaps even more of an incentive to define womanhood for yourself.

So why is all of this political? After all the column is “Gender Politics”. Well, for three primary reasons. Firstly, precisely because gender and power are closely linked. Secondly, because maleness and power are also closely linked. And thirdly, because the first two points cause problems.

You may like to read the column regularly. Not because the author is claiming, like any good salesperson, that it will gain you great relationships, a happy life, prosperity and mind-blowing sex. In all honesty, I doubt reading this column will bring you any closer to that. (And if against the odds it does, please at least buy me dinner.)

But my column may give you a greater understanding of how gender norms shape our realities. It may cause you to marvel, as I do, at the social, sexual and cultural roles between genders and how those relate to our inner sense of power as well as to political structures. And that in return may have a positive effect. At the very least, we can quarrel about all things gender-related and that’s always a blast (or not).

One more thing for now. If you thought that there are only two genders you are mistaken. There are numerous, seventy-one (at least) according to the pre-populated list that Facebook users can choose from when choosing a gender identity.That said, the main focus in my column is gender politics as it relates to women and men.

13 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    Apart from male, female and transgender I think everything else in between is nothing but sexually defined. I mean sexually in terms of preference. Contestation that then follows is a fight for identity and political economy space.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Quoting the end of this article – “One more thing for now. If you thought that there are only two genders you are mistaken. There are numerous, seventy-one (at least) according to the pre-populated list that Facebook users can choose from when choosing a gender identity.”

    So is Facebook now the authority that defines gender??

    • Author’s gravatar

      LOL…….i wonder

    • Author’s gravatar

      My brother Oti, you have the right question. The question, expressed in two other way is: Who or which group of people has authority to tell us, Nigerians, what we are—-gender or men and women, females and males, boys and girls—- as our identity, what we should do as men and women, how we should relate in the homes and outside the homes as men and women, and what our duties MUST be as men and women? Where did the person or group of people get the authority from? What makes the authority of the person or group of people superior to or master over our authority as sovereign, independent, free, conscious, thinking and intelligent people?

      SOURCES OF THE QUESTIONS

      These questions take their source from the fact that we are SOVEREIGN, INDEPENDENT AND FREE.

      It takes its source from the fact that we posses authentic historical past which gave us models for interacting or relating, and ethics, standards and values for judging, approving and disapproving our behaviour. Our historical past is also characterised by religions and all that religion gives and this provides another source of the questions.

      The questions take their source fourthly from the fact that I have asked what the word “gender” means in Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and any other language spoken by a paper presenter on gender and got no answer from any of them. The adoption of “gender” to mean male and female, men and women, boys and girls, shows, obviously, mindlessness, apeism, gullibility and self-enslavement by Nigerian women and men who uphold feminism to the ideas, language, meanings, practices, values and standards of Americans feminists, a group of iconoclastic, anti-tradition, dissolute and wasted women, and American culture of romanticism.

    • Author’s gravatar

      I agree with you that Facebook is not an authority. The question, however, is what is gender? It is only with an understanding of the concept of gender, that we can make a meaningful engagement on this subject. As I said in my earlier post, if by gender we refer to the sexes which is defined biologically, then there are only two genders: Male and Female. My preference actually is to refer to sexes as it minimises risk of misunderstanding. Any other thing is a social construct.

  • Author’s gravatar

    How is “Being a mother and typically, the primary care giver —a social construct” knowing that only one person out of a male and a female can be a mother and that the society did not make the person who is a female person a mother and did not imbue her with the necessities for caring for children?

    • Author’s gravatar

      Being a mother, in the sense that it is only a woman that can give birth to a child is a biological function. Breastfeeding the child is a biological function. Bathing, clothing, playing, paying attention to a child is something that both the father and the mother can do. Women tend to be more nuturing, and I do not claim to know all the reasons why. It may have something to do with our biology, and I won’t be surprised if it is. But raising children, which is the sense in which I have used the term “primary care giver” which necessarily includes breastfeeding and nuturing (which only the mother can do), feeding, clothing, disciplining, and being available for the child, is not just a mother’s job. It both for the father and the mother. And to the extent that society looks to the woman (i.e. the mother) as being solely responsible for this, that is a social construct.

      • Author’s gravatar

        “feeding, clothing, disciplining, and being available for the child, is not just a mother’s job. It both for the father and the mother. And to the extent that society looks to the woman (i.e. the mother) as being solely responsible for this, that is a social construct”.

        The duties listed have NEVER been for only a mother in Nigeria. Father disciplines. He takes up discipline when a mother cannot discipline a child—-usually his wife reports the child—and when he observed bad behaviour by a child himself. Father is as much available to children as working to earn income for clothing and feeding makes possible. Mothers took up that kind of working making it a value after they destroyed the superior, moral, noble and INVALUABLE duty of working in the home.

        Are the roles of father social construct or not?

        Let us test the thesis that natural or created (divinely ordained) dispositions, duties and behaviour by females which are identified as biological, psychological and physiological are labelled “social construct” and test the validity of the labelling.

        Have you ever observed a mere toddlers, not taught any social
        behaviour keenly in order to learn his or her NATURAL behaviour and dispositions to things and people? Have you made comparisons for male and female toddlers? If “yes”, did you observe any difference? If “yes” why the difference since no one has taught them any behaviour or disposition to people and things? If “No” I would be surprised so very much that I would doubt the r honesty of “No”.

        If we grant “social construct applies”, consider these

        Is the economics of social construct the same as or consistent with the economics of “division of labour” in places of work outside the home or not? Is there mono working or job culture in any faculty or department of working outside the home? Why preserve plural working culture or division of labour outside the home and not in the home?

        What is the moral value of social construct or no moral value for it? What place has “social construct” for moral development and preservation of order in marriage and family life, or no place for it concerning these vital necessities? What is the moral aim of “social construct” or no moral aim for it?

        • Author’s gravatar

          I, like you, also know that the work at home is invaluable work, and one for which we can never thank enough, the women that choose to be full time home-makers. I also know that for some women that option may not be available for very many varying reasons. I celebrate that life-giving love of mothers and will always do so. You may wish to read: https://wp.me/p4LVzX-76. Maybe my choice of words may not accurately convey my message. But I stand to be corrected, if are we are disagreed on the fact that care giving for children, cannot be the sole function of the mother.

          • Author’s gravatar

            A problem with the understanding of womanhood by today’s women (including girls and ladies) is that they, like you, Mary, hold, believe, or think that managing the home or being wife to the family (or the home), is a choice, is enslavement, and is inferior to working outside the home. This is why you wrote “we can never thank enough the women that CHOOSE (my emphasis) to be full time home-makers”.

            This statement can be given two interpretations. The first is that women are not obliged to work in the home while the second is that women are not obliged to be “full time home makers”. By the latter interpretation, women may be part time home makers.

            Let me note that NO Nigerian woman remains in the home 24 hours a day.

            However managing the home or being wife to the family (or the home) is not a choice for women, especially as wives; it is an obligation being the role determined for all woman, especially as wives, by God. It constitutes the ORDER in marriage and family life. Take note of the use of order.

            If by “choose to be full time home makers” you mean that a woman can abandon her children, husband or both her children and husband any time that she likes, for any reason, while she is needed by the children or by the husband or by both of them, you err about the duty or role of women and the significance and inevitability of the place of order in marriage and family life.

            Marriage, constituted by a husband and a wife, is a system, Family, constituted by a husband, wife and children, is also a system. Other systems are mechanical systems, biological systems, chemical systems, and social systems. There must be order in every system for the system to function..Without order no system will function.

            Order is said to be the first law in heaven. Order in marriage means that different duties or roles must be carried out by the two elements (husband and wife) that make up marriage while order in family life means that different duties or roles must be carried out by each of the three elements (husband, wife and children) that make up family life.

            The duty or role of a woman, especially as a wife, is expressed very significantly by her creation with the ability to bear children. The ability to devote time to bringing them up morally and care for them are attached to this.

            In other words, women are specially gifted in terms of intellectual sensitivity, emotionally, and psychologically than men. These gifts are absolutely necessary or inevitable for caring for children. They go with the biochemistry of women.
            Man has no biological ability to bear children and has intellectual (logical), physical and mechanical ability concerning their upbringing.

            Man has financial duty concerning caring for them. This means that he has the duty to provide money for caring for children by his wife or other women. He may however choose to give more than financial care. By this is meant that he may choose to give his time to be with them in the home, play with them, bath them and wear them clothes, provide food for them, clean a toddler who masses his or her clothe, etc. But doing these, as much as he is able to do them, certainly not as well as a mother does them, does not make these considerations of caring for children his duty or role. They are the duties of a wife, mother or woman.

            A good wife appreciates doing these by her husband and thanks him for doing it. No good wife will leave the home as a choice or her right and imposes doing them on his husband as his duty. The right to do this is demanded by feminists and imitated by most of today’s wives.

            With regard to the demand of feminists for equality for women and men, husbands and wives, caring for children being a particularity, it is noted that for writing “care giving for children, CANNOT (my emphasis) be the sole function of the mother”, you express consistence with the idea of equality and its practice of feminists and that you err for upholding it.

          • Author’s gravatar

            WAO! I must agree that in a while, my people have decided to engage themselves constructively (instead of abuses) and by that have enlightened a lot of us.

            It is also a fact that marriage (between females and males) is a contract by inference (custom) or nature and should there be any intended change of terms, such should be negotiated before its commencement or it should be quietly adjusted between couples when it is on with sincere understanding between them.

            i detest the present order where our “intelligent” females do decide without consultations to abdicate their roles in marriage for whatever reason and where our “strong” males also resort to marrying more wives or having uncounted concubines for reasons best known to them.

  • Author’s gravatar

    I just want to decolonize human history as a whole. And I have no tolerance for patriarchal misogynstic males with a God complex or ‘white’ supremacists with a God complex. We deserve to know everything. Furthermore, while same-sex behavior may be universal, the concept and the “homosexual” can be traced back to 1870’s Germany as a criminal sexual pathology. It was a typical (intellectually lazy) clumsy white European neologism combining elements of both Latin and Greek for a made up medical/ psychological issue. There is an absence of the concept of “homosexuality” or an analogous concept prior to the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe. “Homosexuality” as a concept is also geographically specific; no precisely corresponding term can be identified OUTSIDE OF Western Europe AND areas of heavy white/European settlement.

    I have no problem with consensual, age symmetrical same-gender sexual and romantic relationships, but what I CAN’T stand is being lied to or having human history adulterated for the sexual and political agendas of lying entitled whites. These are the descendants of the SAME despicable people who said Ancient Egyptians and the people who built Old Zimbabwe were “white” and that any Black people who happened to be there were their “slaves.”Their false beliefs that “a link to a past” for “their birthright” so constantly make them feel they have “the right” to adulterate, twist, whitewash, and fabricate things that aren’t there. I don’t care what their reasons are or what they think they’re going going through, they are not allowed to read things back into human history that didn’t exist. I will no longer tolerate these people obscuring and ommitting the fact that homosexuality and homophobia are directly tied to patriarchy and misogyny and total adult male sexual privilege over women and boys. I have no tolerance for white supremacist feminism or white homonationalism.