“Power is very difficult to relinquish. Men have enjoyed untold powers for too long they do not wish to relinquish power to women”. Mabel Ewhieroma. In every country, women suffer unfair treatment of one kind or another and all cultures, women have always been relegated to the background, their role in the family and society unrecognised and undervalued. They are often seen as part of the property of men (Adebimpe, 1998:5). The woman is nevertheless central and an integral part of the survival process of a family; she works every minute, hour, all day long to keep the family going or together. In a poor family she hawks goods around, spends almost ten hours in the farm, cooks for the family. After that “she has to battle with the weight of a whole man in bed in a sexual gymnastics” (Angya, 2002). In all situations, the woman bears the end result. Men create problems but women suffer for them. As Maryam Abacha (1997) once noted “Men make wars and women are refugees”. This shows that the Nigerian woman suffers dehumanization and mental torture during and after wars by the harsh and gender biases of cultural referents. She has to bear the burden of looking after the wounded, abandoned husband and the children. Okpeh (1990:2) however express that the contemporary Nigerian society discriminates against women, and it is this tendency in its many ramifications, which breeds their marginalisation, oppression and consequently exploitation by men, that is responsible for their ignorance poverty and disease.
The Nigeria woman like any other woman in the world is shrouded in a plethora of problems despite her efforts towards the upliftment of the Nigerian Nation. As Angya (2002) has observed: "Women in Nigeria are discriminated against, they are marginalized, oppressed and exploited and above all abused, these tendencies also define their place in society, what they should or should not do, who they are and in fact what or who they are can aspire to be in society".
Women do face various forms of dehumanizing treatment. When husband shows a bit of love, care and understanding in-laws accuse her then of using charms on him, but if he eventually dies she is the one that killed him. This goes to show that the society is not fair to the woman. Mohammed (1992:13) decries that beyond physical violence expressed in female circumcision, wife battering, rape and sexual torture, there are also psychological; and economic ones like confinement, (purdah) forced marriage, denying women either as daughters or wives the means to take care of themselves and/or improve their nutrition, health, education etc.
Preference for the male child confers an inferior status on the girl-child right from birth. As she grows up she is subjected to female genital mutilation, she is denied education, recreation, nutrition and so on. At a very tender age, she may be forced to marry a man as old as her father or even older. Due to her physiological immaturity, the first pregnancy sentences her to a life of misery and abandonment as a result of visco-vagina fistula (Adebimpe, 1998:6). Her recognised and acceptable societal role is to bear children and take care of her husband and the children. She is not even allowed to be involved in the decision-making process in her area of competence. Any involvement in democracy and governance is frowned at by society. She has to decide either to participate in partisan politics or lose her husband and children. ...
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