There’s a lot of reality that some of us are going to need exorcism to acknowledge. Meanwhile, this issue deserve a thorough exegesis.“I am lucky to be licking the right ass”, this is a controversial phrase uttered by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie a successful Nigerian feminist who have written a lot of books that are heavily pregnant with feminist ideologies among them Purple Hibiscus, Half of a yellow sun, We should all be feminists and Americanah. The quote I have used as an escort is from her book Americanah and it begins by saying,”The biggest problem in this country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people who are not where they are supposed to be because they won’t lick anybody’s ass or they don’t know which ass to lick or they don’t even know how to lick an ass. I’m lucky to be licking the right ass”. Whatever that means, I believe its a highly subjective issue, it depends on how you view it, but the phrase did a great job in bringing me closer to the main issue of this article which is feminism and its short- comings.
To begin with, I would like to applaud feminists both late and living for endangering their lives in standing up against radicalism which was and is still rife within the spheres of life which continue to subjugate women in all forms. The forerunners did a great job and without their effort the likes of myself and my fellow female colleagues would not have been corresponding here.Revolutionaries and philosophers like Jeanne Jacques Rousseau and Frantz Fanon who heralded important sentiments that were so powerful and that we still refer back to today such as “men are all born equal, but all I see is chains”, had a tremendous impact in advocating for equality,it changed the narrative, hence cannot be substituted by anything .
However, I strongly feel that these theories successfully empowered women theoretically, yet overlooked one aspect of life which is now haunting women with their education or better phrased, their ’emancipation’.
Feminism, of course as a human rights issue for instance , paved way for equality between men and women through trying to tilt scales of imbalance, but the whole concept was done in a wrong way because tilting scales means there has to be some maintenance of balance. Unfortunately, feminism only targeted women as it’s audience in the first place, it created that sort of isolation of women from the society. Feminists embarked on a malicious radical approach of wanting to dominate and not maintain balance, that alone is problematic.
When talking about gender equality – the term dominance should be out of the equation.No sensible person person has shared power by dominating! Now, talking about gender equality, some men think that issue has been over emphasized and tend to ignore it. As an aftermath, when women are empowered theoretically they struggle to penetrate through those positions they have been rallying for and because men with their ego have not been engaged from the beginning, they refuse to cooperate .That also explains why now even feminists are trying to find the right ass to lick, radicalism doesn’t really work. Honestly, if feminists were engaging with men more often, there was obviously going to be a swift transition of power, but now the predicament of women seem to have worsened, they got educated but still have to lick the right bottom to get their dream jobs at most, our grandmothers used to be submissive and beg for what they wanted, they weren’t educated. Frank enough, theoretically as envisaged the feminism ideologies worked, but practically they are failing.
Feminism is the theory of encouraging women to be better creatures, but in practicality it does not spell out how women ought to relate with men when they have attained the much talked about equality because men have been socialized that they exercise power over women from a tender age and from a cultural perspective this is common sense. The absurdity of this issue is that women only got to know of equality at a later stage in life which complicates the whole process of equality and very few men truthfully believe in feminism because as a theory they ought to have their own views pertaining the subject in question .Feminism failed to note that inequality cannot be eradicated by advocating for dominance, that ideology is a fallacy.
By spelling out what went wrong with feminism, i don’t hate it, i actually adore Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie a Nigerian novelist and Tsitsi Dangaregmbwa a Zimbabwean playwriter. I was greatly thrilled by Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Dangarembga’s She no longer weeps.
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Nigerian novelist and feminist
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwean feminist and play writer
These two women had a lot in common, radicalism,they were radical feminists and their influence on young girls is to date so strong. What i rebuke is their misleading ideologies illustrated within their books. They will make you believe that feminists are entirely independent, won’t lick anybody’s ass. But look, Dangarembga’s marriage proved that these beliefs are nothing but mere fallacies .
I also did my research right and realised that Adichie on the other hand is enjoying her successes because she is surrounded by males who have the keys to unlock doors she can’t herself, hence she now talks about ‘licking the right ass’. She points out clearly that even when one is well qualified, might not be successful if not aware about how to lick the right ass.
So I noted with utter rage that feminism like any other school of thought, is to do more with Agenda setting and nothing else.
At some point Adichie had to confess that even with education,women are still struggling to penetrate through the positions that have been a preserve for men. She reiterated that the higher she has gone up the ladder of success, the less women she had encountered there which is really worrisome.
When Adichie wrote her novel Purple Hibiscus, she said that a male journalist approached her and said her book was all about feminism and warned her that it’s not good to call herself a feminist because feminists are viewed as people who hate men and they live miserable lives , but Adichie told herself that she was going to call herself ‘a happy African feminist’ either way it didn’t change anything because a feminist is a feminist regardless of the wording.
Unperturbed by that journalist, another woman also approached her and warned her that feminism was un-african, and that chimamanda had been mainly influenced by western books she studied much .
Sad enough even with her powerful ideologies she failed to change the status quo in Nigeria, well the evidence is clear, the abductions targeted at school girls is a reflection that the society still doesn’t believe in girls education and they haven’t grasped feminist ideologies yet .
I guess that explains why she now divides her life between Nigeria and America and why she has many American friends who believe in her ideologies, she is frustrated by little progress feminism has made in Nigeria and the African continent.
Paying a closer look at America itself women who show feministic tendencies also suffer from a lot of criticism one notable example is that of Hillary Clinton who is one of the pioneers of women’s rights in the 21st century, in 1995 she made a powerful speech articulating that ‘ women’s rights are human rights’ and this gave birth to many women rights campaigns and activists coming from hibernation, they voiced up .
Fast forward to 2016 ,many Americans saw Clinton as tough and thinks she should learn to put a smile a bit and act in a womanly manner than appearing rigid and stern and also engage men in a more friendly manner than being tough which is masculine, but who doesn’t know that politics is a dog-eat-dog affair meaning that there is no room for courtesy .
During presidential debates when Clinton showed feminine tendencies by complaining of being nominated to answer the questions first, they were quick to doubt her eligibility as a presidential candidate, she was viewed as insecure and lacked the stamina required in politics of dealing with critical and urgent international issues that America as a super power have to deal with on a daily basis without complaining.
It was really absurd though to note that besides that Clinton was capable, the fact that she was a woman and also that she couldn’t lick anybody’s ass she was punished, the electorate saw it fit to vote for a man whom they themselves have criticized and said he had the weirdest policies regarding foreigners, Muslims and so forth because America just couldn’t have a female president.
I felt that a heavy cloud have hung heavily over all women advocates, it was really a sad moment for all feminists in the world.
This clearly depicts the real hurdles women are encountering.
Its really difficult for a woman to climb up the ladder of success without being criticized for one aspect or the other.
Clinton has undoubtedly worked really hard to be where she is now because she is focused , and its worthy to pay her due credit.
It is from this background now,that is see the short comings of feminism as a theory. From the onset feminism should have taught women how to lick the right ass so that in future they won’t suffer even if they are qualified. The real facts about life is that no one can succeed alone, you need other people to help you. Feminists have however failed to stress out this fact making women believe they can succeed on their own .Its quiet funny how radical feminists end up getting married, but in the first place having been denouncing marriage, one notable example is that of chimamanda, she influenced other women that married was the worst institution ever to be entered into, yet she is now happily married to sn American doctor, how misleading she has been with her ideologies!
Globally we might have made great strides in as much as empowering women is concerned, but women are really struggling to hold the same positions with men without being ridiculed.This is mainly because power cannot be relinquished easily, those in possession of it won’t relinquish it willy nilly, feminists have tried to grab it the harder way,but the theory had fallen short.
Anyway,i have ran short of words but i think that this proverb summarizes all “he who does not know what went wrong, will not remember when the rain began to beat him and worse off will never know how to begin drying himself” we now know what went wrong, lets correct that and make sure women’s dignity is preserved as for feminism, should it be revised? Be the judge!
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