It baffles me that people still want to look me in the eye and deny the fact that women have been subjugated, to this day, and are still being subjugated. 

I see people on talk shows every day deny that there are rights that women have been denied. 

Perhaps it is due to Western civilization that we make attempts to water down what transpires in our communities and societies, so let me welcome you to Nigeria. 

Where to begin as we have violations for different classes of women. 

Do we start with the prepubescent girls who are yet to reach the age of full maturity but are being sold off into marriage with men who are 4 times their age, forced to raise a family and begin a new life with a man they do not know and torn away from their families to begin the lonely and painfully road to maturity? 

Or perhaps we go to the extreme end of the spectrum and speak on the harmful practices that widows are being subjected to. 

The list is endless, from drinking the water used to wash the dead bodies of their husbands to shaving off their heads to preventing them from going outside or seeing the sun for specific numbers of days after the passing of their husbands. 

All for what? 

To prove that they didn’t bring misfortune upon their husband and cause his death. 

But what happens to a widower in Nigerian society? 

Nothing. 

Tell me why there are no harmful practices to make certain that a man did not kill his wife.

Explain why the man doesn’t have to sit with the dead body of his wife in a dark room for several days. 

Explain why the man isn’t forced to remarry his wife’s siblings after the passage of his beloved wife. 

Why does society hold such discrepancies? 

Or perhaps you would like me to walk through Female Genital mutilation and the thousands of women’s lives it has ruined. 

And yet you still attempt to cover all these up and try to convince them that women thrive in a society that protects them. 

The same society dictates that a woman doesn’t scream loudly lest her neighbours hear but also seems to encourage women to speak up when going through abuse. 

The same society dictates that women cover up lest she attracts the attention of males. So I pose this question to society. 

What were the traditional attires worn by our ancestors? Didn’t the attire consist of wrappers strewn across the chest area and the waists of women.

So why, then, do we attempt to say that nudity is a contemporary concept when it has always been prevalent in our society? 

Cover yourself up as a queen, yet the king is allowed to roam the street, half-naked. 

In the words of Queen Charlotte A Bridgerton’s story, ‘Let him be mad if mad is what he needs.’ 

But as a woman, you are not afforded that luxury. 

Society claims to put us first, so why are we called on last in any matter? 

As long as society keeps disputing the fact, we will keep on fighting because the battle isn’t lost until every single soldier is down. 

Closing Remarks

It shouldn’t even be up for debate that the rights of women have been trampled upon. That’s a fact. 

If there are any harmful practices against women in your country let me know in the comments section.