The dimensions of patriarchal
oppression often you realise has many facets. The pain of oppression is in the consciousness,
in being aware that you are oppressed. A clueless fool is a happy fool. This
short piece is one of the many chapters of how I document the oppression of
women in Northern Nigeria through a combination of personal narratives and
interviews. First thing you need to know if you’ve never been to Northern
Nigeria is that it’s a deeply gendered society, this often interlays with sex
which is governed through religious beliefs. Today I outline a brief encounter
that got me thinking about how men negotiate women’s sexuality in subtle
indirect ways of policing you. But first of all, I must tell you where this
oppression is, my body, as in the female body is the site of oppression.
Take this for the context, I was
getting dressed up to attend an interview. While the initial outfit I had
picked technically had nothing wrong with it from my deciphering of Islamic
‘hijab[1]’
for women. I went ahead and changed my shirt to a longer one that extended down
to my thigh bearing in mind I was still going to layer it with a long
open-front overflowing abaya on top. Let’s face it, I was only doing that to conceal
my often as I have been told by both men and women alike “curvy body”. I
changed the top and went downstairs and was about to say bye to my father
because I was running late for a one o’clock appointment; it was 12:03pm.
Now for the juice. He called be
back and said he has to “inspect” my outfit before I go out. Mind you here’s
the complete outfit: A black flowy open-front abaya, dark wash blue jeans
underneath, a long white shirt underneath, and my veil graciously wrapped
around my head. I could go into the gory details of what he said next, but the
summary will do just fine. He with deep
disapproval and anger in his eyes said I should go and change my outfit to
“kayan Hausawa” (mind you I only have like 5 of those, and if you follow my
Instagram you probably know my entire wardrobe). Then I went on to receive a 20-minute
lecture on how it’s not done. It’s not our culture, all the while dancing
around the bush on what it’s really about: Your personality expressed in your
dressing makes men uncomfortable. I have had this argument many times before.
Without ever actually saying those words, his ideologies and idiosyncrasies conceal
my ‘body’ and ‘me’ underneath culturally-deemed appropriate clothing for my
body. How do I know this for sure? Because my extremely petite elder sister
doesn’t have this problem.
Now to fully understand the idea
I am trying to clarify is that a body, mine or hers is just a body. Every other
thing that the female body has been conferred with is cultural, a patriarchal
culture at that. And this one makes a female body a sexual object, not to be
mistaken with “sexy” which is an adjective, but a deeply ingrained symbiotic
association of female body as a symbol of sex; an object for men. Not yours. And
so therefore in a conservative society like Northern Nigeria makes it something
that should be policed and curbed at all levels. Men’s inability/failure to
deal with and comprehend sex, sexuality and gender is played out at a
gargantuan level in our society. Deeply etched into the culture, this fear
permeates into the religious ideologies and often uses religion to police their
fear and lack of understanding of these concepts. And us women, are forced to
deal with it and bear their cross for them. So men on the outside will not be
made “uncomfortable” in dealing with the assumed sexuality this body, any
female body communicates. So men on the outside will not be put in the uncomfortable position of walking up to
me to demand my phone number or cat call me.
12: 25pm, I changed my outfit.
[1]
By Hijab, I am
referring to the act of covering up your “awrah” or privates which extends from
your neck to the ankles of your feet not the veil covering fact to feet
popularly culturally misappropriated in Nirthern Nigeria as hijab.
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