By: Omakiya, Precious

I have come to realize that feminism is like every other form of activism, if you sit on your hand and only fight with your mouth (even as powerful as the tongue might be), you’d probably get nowhere. And if you do ‘in my corner change’, it will not be enough to create a significant change. We risk only creating a community of passionate advocates with no meaningful progress to show for it. But there must be progress.

I do not write this piece as someone who is well versed in the topic of feminism. Instead, I write as a non-expert, who nevertheless has observed the actions and inactions of ‘feminists’ around me. Like every other form of activism, if all you do is complain all day and night and do nothing, then maybe feminism might as well be a joke. I am not telling a reader to pick up placards, head to the front of the National Assembly Complex, in Abuja, and go face to face with a firing squad. Although when push comes to shove as with every other activism, you should be ready to do that. I am simply of the view that meaningful changes are driven by effective actions.

A few weeks back, it was announced by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), that married women would need permission from their husbands to travel out of the country. As I expected, feminists took to their status, twitter handle and so on to express their displeasure. It made me realize that just like many activists complaining about bad governance in their homes, nothing will be done because this country rarely has ears. While the NDLEA requirement was eventually reversed, this might not necessarily be the case everytime. When a bill to repeal the VAPP ACT was introduced, the same thing happened, women took to their status and other social media platforms to complain yet it didn’t seem to be enough as nothing was done and now all seems to be forgotten.

Perhaps, the idea of sitting on our hands comes from the belief that eventually some change will happen as the trend has always been. The question however, is how long till such change happens. Usually you would see a positive change that shouldn’t take so long, manifest after decades because the people who could have made it happen probably didn’t take the right steps. For example, let us talk about the abortion laws in Nigeria. See, in Nigeria, it is no news that abortion is illegal (except it is to save the life of a mother). Many feminists have talked and talked about how such laws are unfair to women however, not many have done anything. With a lot of them repeatedly leaving their fate to the law makers who do not seem to care about them or their well being. These feminists after being heartbroken by the law makers come online to talk about how they are not doing their jobs but the trend is that it doesn’t seem to go farther than that. So, for a long time, legal provisions like Section 228, 229, 230 of the Criminal Code have stayed. Recently, also, there has been a hint that abortion is about to be made legal in Nigeria and this development has had many feminist say ‘I am sat’. Perhaps if they had taken action and not just said words, they would have been ‘sat’ a while back. Seeing past bills on abortion that were almost signed to law but never successful might mean that if these feminists do not take action, they will be sitting for a while.

Feminism And The Social Contract You Did Not Sign

But maybe I should stop comparing feminism with every other form of activism and I should treat it as it is.

You are part of this society, it means you have somehow and at some point signed the social contract. And you are supposed to serve the laws in order to enjoy every right like every other human. However, because you are a woman, you get to enjoy little to nothing of this. It is not like it is written in the constitution that women must suffer. But it seems to be written in the past, and it has influenced the present, and now even when the constitution and the social contract does not want you to suffer as a woman, the society, government and its policies made get at you.

You are a feminist to fight for your right and the right of other women but you are doing less fighting but more talking, more complaining. You go online on twitter to fight the misogynists and the women that support them on the streets of twitter; you report their account so you can get some form of satisfaction when they are restricted. You do your own in-the-corner change by teaching women their rights and telling them to not let any man trample their rights. However, you might need to ponder on this, it is time to check if teaching the women their rights and not how to protect it is enough. If not teaching them who they are to protect it from is enough. And you might have to think if the misogynists on twitter are the only people you should be fighting or maybe you should also fight the policies that enable them. There are a thousand more women on twitter who can drag anybody shaming a woman but cannot do more than that.

This opinion piece is not saying that your words whether written or spoken is useless or not enough as I know that there are activists who have been killed for talking and writing. There are activists who have been sent out of school and imprisoned for the same. However, the words you speak or write might hold little to no water because of how you pose them or who you pose them to. It is pertinent that feminists remember that feminism, unlike other form of activism or movement (for example the ones that fight bad governance), is a cause that only less than half of the populace is fighting for, and you might need more force behind your blow to leave a dent. Yes, there are some feminists who have chosen to use their hands, however, with just a handful of them, the dent you wish to leave might not be possible.

You might choose to wait it out because definitely something good will happen. But as I have said, this might take a while. The difference between seating on your hands and getting up may lie in the questions. Will there ever be an end to gender inequality? and when will gender inequality end?

PS: This piece does not imply that I believe that the protection of women’s right should be the responsibility of feminist, however the saying goes; he who wears the shoe knows where it hurts more.