Chimamanda Adichie (Odeluwa), you are one woman I respect thoroughly. I had even written at one time on my Facebook timeline that your kind of feminism which wants to be feminine without being regarded as a second class citizen was acceptable to me and should be so to other men of goodwill. But, I think you boxed yourself into a corner when during a Tedtalk presentation titled, ‘We should all be feminists,’ you said; ” Gender matters and it colours the way we view the world. But that can change.” That got me thinking, ‘Why do we need to change the status quo because the alpha women like you said so? What happens to the larger percentage of women who indeed need protection from the men. A certain youtuber has even said that women still need men to make their feminism crusade work which makes the crusade an absurd one. Is it not an evidence that there is indeed an ongoing subtle gender war launched by the females in different fronts to emasculate the man?
Chimamanda Adichie, you said that one of your most hated words is emasculation. It is so to you because it only talks of dehumanisation of the menfolk and not of the womenfolk. You want to kill the story about men being dehumanised while you preach the dehumanisation of the women folk.
You think men being taught to be hard men so they could protect their homes in every sense of the word should be discontinued. You found it funny; the idea of a boy being a sissy in your class when you were 9 years old and not wanting to take charge while you were deprived from taking charge as you ambitiously deserved.
You justify the anger expressed by women abused and dismiss the anger of the men who are subjugated by similar natural circumstances to be of lower class. You were born into means so how would you understand it. And that is laughed off by your audience. Do you consider that fair?
You said it yourself that men have over the years been biologically disposed to be stronger. And for that reason, the men have been the ones in control of the affairs of humanity. You seem to forget that from time to time, women like you also took charge; the Cleopatras and Queen Elizabeths. You call for a change in that narrative today because tact has now shown itself to be more powerful than brute. Yet you forget to tell your audience that by the very act of proposing these changes and citing the part of history that would collaborate your story, that you are part of the tact game by the womenfolk to take over the affairs of the world from men. Admit it. The class war is ongoing alongside the gender war. The idea is to get the gender war which has been on for long to outrun the class war. And it can.
I do not blame you. It is the times we live in. I recently saw a hollywood movie, a very old movie where the alpha muscularly masculine Arnold Schwarzenegger played the role of a scientist who was able to get himself pregnant using the egg of his wife. It was meant to be a comedy and from your kind of emasculating jokes your audience smirked to, I am sure you would find the movie hilarious but I do not. It was gross and yes, you got it, emasculating to manhood.
The fact that you were born an alpha female, Odeleuwa NNE m, does not make every woman so. The idea of femininity has an honourable vulnerability attached to it. Which is why men that are men would not want to even raise their voices at you not to talk of raising their hands at you, not because they can’t but because they know it would be dehumanising. It is this honourable vulnerability that would make men that are men to risk their lives and means just to keep you happy while you probably might be more concerned about your ambition than about them.
Ihe na adi mma n’oke na abo. While I agree with you that dehumanising the woman in relationships and not according her equal respect should be expunged from our culture, I disagree with you that women should be treated as men and men as women.
That would be dancing to the grand scheme to conquer the man.
For the sake of proper information of your audience, Nnukwu Nwanyi, in Igbo culture, the women hold their own meetings and usually visit Umunna meetings when the need arises. Women have right of say in decisions both in the community and in the family. In fact, just as it is in the Italian culture, the Igbo culture has the woman as the subtle final force from behind. When Umuada raise their force in the society, for instance, whoever they face is history so they are reverted. The myth is that the women need men to subjugate them so they won’t abuse their excess powers which have the potential to consume the whole earth.
So, please, dear Alpha Female Chimamanda, my big sister, kindly do consider tailoring down on some extreme aspects of your feminine thoughts as they could pose some danger in future to these young minds.
I still intend to teach my son to have a stronger disposition even though he is more of a creative softie. He needs to be tough to survive and protect his family but I still do not make him feel bad about being as unaggressive as he is. I also know i will not deprive my daughter who is more of the warrior go getter kind from taking same self defence classes when she comes of age. Both need to survive. I agree with you that the man should not be threatened by his wife’s success. At the same time the woman should not rub it in by insisting he must be the bread winner even when she earns more. I believe that is the miseducation of the female folk you also referred to. That would make feminism crass sadism and a full blown gender war. See the fate of the men in the US. So, should we all be feminists? Go figure.
@ostareze
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