FEMINISM VERSUS HYPOCRISY

                                                      

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It is not uncommon nowadays to hear women claim that it is a man’s world and that they are underrepresented. Feminists always adduce this to natural peculiarities of women exposing them to vulnerabilities causing their subjugation and repression.
But isn’t obvious that more than ever before, women are now being embodied across all strata? This accomplishment can be ascribed to democracy, a political system which professes equality and being adopted by almost every country. In fact, only a doomed political candidate will fail to include women’s involvement in his manifestos. Also, civilization is evolving and virtually every country, even the most primal ones, have begun dumping the creed of the womenfolk belonging to the kitchen and not school.
Nowadays in the political arena, women are being given the mettle and many themselves are summoning the courage to contest for positions with the menfolk; but it is disheartening that many are just contesting, few are winning. The triumph of a woman candidate in an election can only be guaranteed if the political behaviour has conventionally, though not constitutionally, reserved jostling for the position for women. Whenever a woman pits against a man in an election, the latter ends up carrying the day even if the electorates constitute majorly women. This fact was self-evident when Sarah Jubril contested against Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party without succeeding. Despite that those who voted at the primaries
were majorly women, she got only one vote! A vote which was sardonically alleged to be hers. Notwithstanding that Sarah Jubril did not campaign as vigorously as Goodluck Jonathan, it would be naturally presumed that she should have had overwhelming support from her fellow women who dominated the primaries.

Here in the University of Ibadan, a higher institution where the females constitute majority of the students’ population, female domination did not translate into the election of a female student who vied for the presidency of the Students Union Government. Juxtaposing between her and her then male opponent, the candidate whose resourcefulness, competence, charisma and precedents could have made for a viable and virile leadership is known by conscientious Uites. But most probably because many female Uites like to gush whenever a guy is involved, they transform into vacuous beings and make the inevitable fatuous decision to let the guy win rather than one of their own.
Reasons why women are the nemesis of one another are not hard to find. Many are so apathetic to politics or any other human endeavour that if one among them is sharp and smart enough to be politically active, viscous jealousy arouses in them and they start exhibiting secretly or overtly, the pull-down syndrome. Rather than fight for a cause, many ladies prefer mooding and mooning over some guy, thus lending credence to the fact that this really is a chauvinistic world, a fact which same ladies would hypocritically discredit in the open.
Directly related to the self-jealous nature of human beings but notably women, is the pathetic belief that when a fellow woman holds a high office, she becomes bitchy, arrogant, indifferent and a ‘Lordess’ over others.
The parley above is not about opining that when an apparently competent man and an obviously inept woman are contesting for same position in a female-dominated establishment, the woman must necessarily be elected just to prove some kind of feminist liberalism. No! At least, competence and acceptability must never be sacrificed because of sympathies. This is about putting the question that when a woman candidate bypasses her male opponent in terms of competence, charisma, resourcefulness and sagacity, why should the lady lose when those who can make her succeed are not outnumbered?
For the sake of fairness, women cannot claim again that they are underrepresented. The issue now is that they are underrepresenting themselves, their own worst enemies, pulling one another down. Therefore, instead of hypocritically lamenting the dirge of underrepresentation, they should support one another. Stop this hyprocrisy!

Bamigbose Janet.

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