Good Girl, Bad Girl

Does being a good girl mean anything in the world we live in today? This question has been ringing in my head for a very long time especially as it always seems the bad girls get it all. You know, the ones that cheat their way through life, the ones that are calculating and conniving, the ones that care less for morals or integrity, the ones that fake it, slander, lie, back stab, sleep around, hurt people, mean, uncouth.You get my point. It seems our world today is full of such people and all of a sudden being a good person seems like an alien concept.

I hear comments like 'oh dear, how come she is getting married when she was a proper baddie in school'..This seems to be the norm though. You know, bad girls get hitched quicker than good  girls. Perhaps its something to do with the skills she garnered whilst jumping from bed to bed? ...now she knows how to sweep a man off his feet. these things require skills you see. I think girls like this learn faster than the good ones..on what a man wants and how to please him...and what to do to get a man where she wants him. I dont have the answers to this but i find it very intriguing.

Men apparently want 'a lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets'. I guess good girls are in trouble in this department unless of course there is a genetic predisposition to being freaky which i highly doubt (PhD thesis anyone?). Some men believe they can bring 'the freak' out of a woman..Well goodluck with that. I say if she hasnt had a lot of experiences then that might be a tough one and you may need A LOT of time and practice.

'A lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets'...errr...how exactly is this transition supposed to rapidly occur if the woman in question is a virgin or hasn't had a lot of sexual encounters? lets be realistic..you dont just go from Mary Magdalene to Madonna in one second. Sentences like this makes me believe that deep down, men do not want a good girl..They want a bad girl who pretends to be good. 

 How's that for a monday morning rant? Lol

Everyday Male Chauvinism

It has come to my realisation that often men dont understand that being chauvinistic has terrible consequences. In societies where cultural norms allow for it to persist, its usually always has detrimental effects on women and also on the relationships they have with the men. In Nigeria, the society condones chauvinism in all forms and usually when a woman speaks up against it she is called a 'feminist'. i think its important for people to analyse situations objectively without any sentiments attached. If you want a happy relationship then its important that you also have to create an environment that will foster happiness. Written below is part of a research paper by two men, Luis Bonino and Péter Szil on male chauvinism. They stress that all extreme forms of violence against women always starts with everyday male chauvinism and works itself up the pyramid as time goes on. So for example, if your partner has already started abusing you verbally (including name calling, or anything that may hurt your feelings), then he is two steps away from a push and you are 5 steps away from getting your bones broken. of course this could happen in the span of 10 years. What i found interesting is the way psychologists map the presence of male chauvinism in a woman's life. According to them, when a woman feels very bad without even knowing why she feels that way... that's the starting point. (she doesnt know because she herself does not recognise the effect of male chauvinism. (if you cant recognise that something has an effect on you then you will be oblivious to it)

Continue to read below... 

The various forms of violence against women are possible to display in many forms. Either as gradual and sometimes not clearly separable shades of a continuous scale or, as in the figure provided, as levels of a pyramid or iceberg. Everyday male chauvinism is the starting point of this scale, or the basis of the pyramid—the soil on which other forms of gender based violence thrive. 

The practices that I call everyday male chauvinism various authors (Miller, Bourdieu, Glick, Castanéda, etc.) call various names: small tyranny, intimate terrorism, “soft,” “weak” or “lowintensity” violence, domination tricks, invisible male chauvinism or benevolent sexism. The more unacceptable “brutal” violence becomes as a form of domination, the more these practices become men’s most commonly used weapons, tricks, traps through which they create the same dominance with “civilised” means. This way, these constitute the largest part of the repertoire of male behaviours against women.

The effect of everyday male chauvinism 

The various manifestations of everyday male chauvinism seem insignificant and banal when taken separately. Their significance lies in the fact that if the woman does not recognise them in time and does not do something against them (and some times years pass before that happens, if ever) their compound and repeated use creates a more or less poisonous atmosphere that undermines women’s life energy, psychic and intellectual equilibrium and autonomy. This is how everyday male chauvinism creates the conditions of women being continuously at the disposal of men.  One reason for the effectiveness of everyday male chauvinism is that it is almost absolutely invisible. This is how it can do insidious and continuous harm to women’s lives, which is only aggravated as time passes. Because women are facing actions that are not obviously abusive or coercive, they have difficulty recognising them and that is exactly why it is difficult to address them. Most of the time, they are not even aware of their effects, thus when they sense the harmful effects, they do not recognise that  they result from the manipulative manoeuvres. The first step in mapping everyday male chauvinism was when the professionals who were helping women asked themselves the question: why do so many 

women feel bad without being able to say why? 

The effect of everyday male chauvinism on women 

For some women, irrespective of their personal characteristics, the manifestations of everyday male chauvinism causes effects that are similar to those of the more severe brutal forms of abuse, they are only lower in intensity. Here are some examples of the consequences, which affect women’s quality of life on various levels, but always adversely:  Overburdens the woman physically and psychically, deprives her of the emotional supplies that she could use to satisfy her own needs and for her own sustenance.  Decreases the woman’s personal power, slows down her personal growth, limits her freedom and increasingly elicits ineffective self-defence reactions such as complaining, which can only increase with time if no change takes place in their causes.  Inhibits the woman’s intellectual capacities, courage, abilities of effective criticism, protest, thinking and action and so makes the woman incapable of working out  and implementing her own life-plan.  Decreases the woman’s self-esteem and credence before herself. Because of the growing dejection and insecurity, the woman feels incompetent, a loser, emotionally detached and helpless.  Causes undefined discontentment and chronic irritation. The woman feels she has had enough of the relationship although “she has no reason” to feel so.  Women blame themselves for this feeling because they are not aware of its origin. The effect of everyday male chauvinism on relationships The manoeuvres of everyday male chauvinism have the following effects on relationships:  An unequal, antidemocratic and badly working relationship comes about where the man’s self-determination and personal growth is realised at the expense of the woman’s.  Step by step, the man’s interests are focused on in the relationship. In the wake of the manoeuvres of everyday male chauvinism, women often leave everything up to the man for whom it becomes even easier to influence situations the way he likes.  As soon as the woman demands changes in the relationship and the man is reluctant to move towards equality in exercising the rights, or when the woman is forced to complain ineffectively, which the man will not listen to, the deterioration or crisis of the relationship will be considered the woman’s sin. Women often sense that something is not working right in the relationship but men deny this. The deterioration of the relationship usually comes from the lack of equality, to which everyday male chauvinism contributes largely. However, if this reason cannot be pointed out, the woman will blame herself as she has been socialised to do so in learning the female role. The man, on the other hand, who does not consider himself an everyday male chauvinist, will not feel responsible for the situation and will seem innocent.  Living together without discussion and cooperation turns the relationship into a battlefield of “cold war” where the woman lives in constant stress. The emptying out of the relationship gives rise to further power abuses and break-up. 

Chivalry is dead and Nigerian women killed it

Chivalry is dead I say…and Nigerian women killed it. You might be wondering why I feel this way, please allow me recount an incident which I know is a common occurrence in today’s society.

Recently, one of my bootilicious friends gave a presentation to a company committee made up of men in their 50s and early 60s. Her presentation was met with positivity as well as stares at her assets rather than at the slides she used to pitch her proposal. As she left the building, one of the committee members sent his very educated female personal assistant to catch up with her to ask for her number as he was interested in making her his mistress. She narrated this story to me with complete normalcy and was taken aback by the shock and disbelief on my face.

I said stuttering: “H-o-w? Has he no shame?”

Her response was: “Babe, its normal.”

“Normal? NORMAL?!” I responded in a raised voice. At this point I lowered my voice so as not to continue the scene that had already been created in the café.

When did it become okay for married men to chase after girls their daughter’s age? When did all this become normal? Why does a married man feel so comfortable chasing after a young woman as though he is entitled to do so?  So I say again, chivalry is dead, but who died first—the gentleman or the lady? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What are the implications on society of this kind of behaviour? The moral question and the chain reaction it causes must be understood and answered for our generation to move forward. It all starts with US, ‘US’ being my fellow women.

Our society’s moral decay has been catalyzed by the materialistic twist our generation has taken which is further perpetrated by the media.  Sadly, our women have bought into it. Our ladies today do not know who they are. Unfortunately, they are victims and simultaneously the product of TV and the media without a personality to call their own or a sense of self. One would wonder if God didn’t create us with unique finger prints.

These ladies go on to form cliques of non-thinking individuals who further aspire to all the media says they should be.  In the chase to express superficial excess as opposed to inner wealth, they do all they can to keep up.

Herein comes the guy; our society produces boys not men, boys who know how to speak the language of shortcut and ladies who understand this language as well, and are more than receptive. Show me your champagne bottle and nice car and I’ll show you my ass and all things soft and nice. Today’s boys believe by all means money has to be made. Money brings the girls, the cars and the clothes. Our society has turned to one of clones. Once we were all bankers, then we went in to telecoms, diverted into ‘yahoo-yahoo’, now we all sell diesel and make music, yet we say ‘Nigeria is bad’, ‘Nigeria is terrible’ but does Nigeria stand a chance in the hands of our generation of clones?

Materialism is the killer of morality and morality is the oxygen of a healthy society. Without it we can’t breathe. Sadly once you get on the ‘follow- follow’ train it never stops – it’s all about who gets married first, what is his family name, how much does he make, have you had kids, do you have a son and it goes on and on.

Breathe my people, breathe. Chivalry is dead and the Nigerian woman watched it die. We as women control society; we are more than homemakers—WE MAKE SOCIETY. Let’s imagine if ladies in secondary school and university only dated the smart guys who spent their time in the library, it would be safe to say the library would overflow: A-students would triple and men in general would spend more time with their books in a bid to develop themselves internally, as opposed to external ‘bling’ to bait women as though they were trying to catch fish.

Ladies if we demanded class, decorum, humility, etiquette and politeness as a prerequisite to a liaison rather than outward riches, designer surnames and fast cars we might cease to go nowhere fast. Sadly on what basis can we make such demands? Aside from your long Brazilian hair, designer bags and red carpet looks, who are you. WHO ARE YOU??!!

To answer this question, life should be lived as a journey of self-discovery as opposed to a media determined fake reality. The knowledge of self, your true self will show you self-worth. Self-worth will support morals and morals will allow our society breathe again.

Breathe my people, breathe.