What happens when you are born a girl? Your story is that of Tolani Adewusi. We just called her Tola, anyway. Tola was born into a family of six. She was the first child and the only girl. As the first born, she grew up rather fast. She quickly learnt how to cook for her brothers and clean the house. At school, she was the brightest student – a clever and confident girl. The teachers always used her case to reprimand the boys in her class, whenever they came back from the field all sweaty and dishevelled. “Look, an ordinary girl is leading the class. A girl. All you boys know how to do is play football and eat.” She took a silent delight in this, something she would later come to regret.
Her cleverness was appreciated and so was the confidence, as long as it did not threated her male schoolmates. It did so one day, though, when she stood up to Ali, the class bully. She insulted him and told him to go back to his mother’s womb to learn proper manners. He slapped her hard. Although he was punished and made to kneel in the sun, the major blame was on Tola’s head. The teachers called her defiant, devil-possessed, foolish and rude. “Do you not know that you do not talk to boys like that?” was what Aunty Brigitte said to her. She learnt how to be quiet in front of boys, how to talk less, close her legs more, apologise more and respect more.
When she clocked fourteen, she demanded that her immediate younger brother, Dele, be made to call her “sistah” since she was three years older than him. After all, her younger sibling, Kere, who Dele was older than by just a year had been forced to call him “ road” as a term of respect. Her mother hissed and said something about her being a girl and knowing her place in the world. It was a cryptic message which Tola later understood: she was a lesser being in some sort.
As time went on, she bottled her feelings. She pretended to be okay with the social construct her gender had placed her in. When she got out of secondary school, she eventually published a poem in the local newspaper. She happily showed it to her father, who, after reading it, simply said, “Focus on getting a job and a husband.” That was all he said. It was when her mother called her later that night and pulled at her ear, saying “This girl, you want to kill me. Why are you writing poems about feminism? Do you not want a man to marry you?” Her mother burnt her manuscript of angry, defiant and soulful poems upon finding it. “You better go to the university, get a job and settle down with a rich man.
That was the worst night of her life, until two years later, on the day her boyfriend raped her for refusing to sleep with him after an expensive dinner. It was in his room, late at night after she decided to follow him there to pick up her coat. She told the campus security agents about it and the news spread like wildfire. People sympathized with her but added, “But what was she doing in his room?” They said it as if, by being in the room, she had excused the guy of a large chunk of the blame. The rest is history now.
But, what happened next, you ask? Does it really matter? Do we not know how it goes? The story of Tola is the story of so many girls in our society. It is the story of girls born to feel inferior, as if their lives were movie roles they had to act perfectly in accordance to some pre-written script. It is the story of millions of girls with stifled aspirations, forced to chase a life of marriage. It is the story of girls told they cannot talk to boys in a certain way, because both genders are not and cannot be equal. It is the story of millions of girls raped worldwide and faulted as causative agents. It is the story of silenced voices floating in the abyss of depression. It is the story of raging fires boiling in bellies of discomfort. It is the story of girls who are not allowed to be themselves because of their gender.
Call me a feminist, womanist, humanist or whatever you please. Maybe I am. May be I am not. I do not know. But what I do know is this: should I have a daughter, I will let her wings fly. I will show her the mirror and say, “look there angel, that is a star who can accomplish whatever she dares to. Prince Charming does not exist, so you better learn to slay your dragons.” I will sew the sun in her skin and remind her that the sky is in her palm. I will tell her to never settle for less just because she does not have a snake dangling between her legs. I will tell her to learn from her mother (because my wife will be a smart, awesome, accomplished and confident woman) and be better than she ever was. I will tell her to be beautiful, bold, strong, defiant, loud, weird, driven and amazing, because she has every right to be.
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