I remember when I was still very young, living in a very rural district of my village, while my mom stayed home all day cooking and taking care of the kids, my dad was out all day, looking for means to fend for the family. My dad would always say, "Shame on any man who cannot take care of his family," and my mom usually nods her head in affirmation. Subliminally, this was his message to my brothers. Dad never talked about what I, as a female was supposed to contribute to the family, and so one day I asked him.
"Dad, can I also take care of my family needs?". I can never forget the shock on my Dad's face. He stood still for a long time, stating at me and wondering if I had gone mad. He called on my two younger sisters and ask me to bring in his snuff box, I did. While we were all seated, he told us simply, tour only work in the home is to take care of the house, kids and your husband's needs, you all are females and that's what you do. In summary, he said we should serve as husband's as they have already "paid" for our service.
So you may be wondering why I told this story, the difficulty of integrating the idea of feminism in my culture would be a Herculean task seeing that the belief that a woman is "lower" than a man stems deep into our cultural practice and norms. I am an Igbo Lady, one of the tribes in Nigeria, Africa.
When I grew up and understood that a woman can also make her own money and be her own boss, the idea of having the ultimate say in by affairs and also in my marriage threatened a lot of people and also a lot of cultural norms that it upset my dad. In my culture, a man pays "bride price" to the family of the woman, hence in a way, "buying" the woman, this giving them the natural sense of "owing l" the lady since they paid to marry her. Now imagine paying for something and later on, that same thing would want to have an equal say in affairs of the home? Nonsense.
Most of the problem of integrating feminism in my culture stems from the fact that women wants to keep most of the "privileges" they get from being woman, while still demanding to have equality with men, and frankly, I don't see how that is going to work,l. For the idea feminism to actually work, one has to break down certain cultural norms and privileges.
These days, women have began to dive into businesses, politics, entrepreneurship, and so on, becoming their own boss and hence, willing to control their own lives even in marriage, but still, certain cultural 'rites" such as bride price has kept them in the cage or being under men.
The idea of bride price is that a man "appreciates the parents of the female for grooming her and in a way, paying for most of the grooming, hence, they could now own her." To even begin the talk of real equality in marriage, one would begin to consider the prospect of ending the culture of bride price, but the truth is, it's still women that are kicking against this idea.
Letting go of certain privileges and accepting that to become equal with men, we should first and foremost, be ready to hear the same burden they hear everyday and still show them that we could survive, just as they have been doing. If we can do this, the term, "weaker" sex would be thrown out of the window naturally.
Thank for reading.
