African Feminists Have To Unlearn Respectability Politics At All Costs.
I have been on this article for months and I have kept postponing finishing and publishing it, I guess I got the right amount of anger today and now I'm doing this.
I was 16 and in my village when a young woman in her early 20s died in her university room and was brought back to be buried in her parent’s home. As tradition required, teenagers and youths were to march the streets of the village with her pictures, chanting and singing in anger that death came to her so quickly.
I joined them in doing that, but as we marched, men who always like to take the lead in everything were already at the fore front, I was behind them and I could hear them loudly say that they were angry because she was taking a fresh vagina to the grave, they said she was too young and her body was fresh, they said that now ants will eat up the body that men should have eaten.
They didn't care if she died, they just wanted her to live because then they and other men can have access to her vagina and body.
Now, these men were not saying these words quietly, they were loud and people around laughed as if it was funny.
Yesterday, I remembered this event and was angry. The blantant and bold dark misogyny, the hatred for women, the entitlement to our bodies even after we die, even in our graves, men sexualize us and fantasize of graping us.
Dictionary.com defines respectability politics as a set of beliefs holding that conformity to prescribed mainstream standards of appearance and behavior will protect a person who is part of a marginalized group, especially a Black person, from prejudices and systemic injustices.
Seeing respectability politics from a feminist view, I dare say that I need women to unlearn this trait as soon as possible,for very many reasons.
1. Women have to see and know and understand that it is okay to be angry, it is okay to acknowledge that men have hurt you in the deepest ways and it is okay to be an angry woman because of that.
As a woman, you cannot afford civility, you cannot afford to tone it down and play nice so that you can please your oppressors.
No, you cannot be all over the place being diplomatic and engaging in conversations with men because you want to teach them about women's rights and gender justice when all they want to do is mansplain and act dumb until you are tired out.
Yes, set that "good girl, polite woman" trait that you were taught from childhood on fire. Burn it. Enough of the Respectability Politics. Enough of being soft and trying so hard to win men over and make them see how feminism benefits men too, as if the patriarchy harming women is not enough reason to burn it to the ground as if they only have to be normal decent human beings only when feminism benefits them.
Stop playing good girl. Stop playing nice girl. Stop playing civility and diplomacy, this is not a negotiation, it's the lives of thousand of women who die every year in the hands of men. It's the lives of women who men rxpe and sexually abuse every single minute in this world, it's the lives of the women taken by a man every 11 minute on earth, it's the women who are victims of acid burn by men, who now live with faces and bodies disfigured because misogyny exists.
This is the lives of women and girls who are being trafficked and turned into sex slaves for the benefit of men, this is the lives of women and girls who are victims of war crimes such as sexual exploitation and rxpe by men who claim to be our protectors.
Feminism is not sugar, it wasn't set in motion to appeal to men's taste or pamper them into loving women. Look,this is not a business negotiation. This is our lives. This is your life, this is the life of your sisters and mothers and daughters and friends, the life of women.
Stop trying to conform to mainstream ideas and perspectives of what a woman should be like, act like or talk like.
Stop trying to tone it down and be a little softer.
Bury the Respectability Politics right now .
2. Feminism is not the equality of sexes.
For the first two years of taking up the feminist badge, I believed like many women that feminism is simply the equality of men and women.
No way we are reducing this whole movement to being equal with men, have you met men? Have you seen men? Men are not the standard.
I like to define feminism as the liberation of women from men and the patriachy. I like to think of feminism as absolute freedom for women. We just don't want the same rights as men, we want rights as women, every right to be free and soar and live without restrictions. We don't want equal rights in a patriarchal world, we want the patriarchy burnt down to ashes.
you might want to say "but the problem is not men, it’s the patriarchy"
Well, that statement, I believe is another one that now absolves men of accountability and try to paint them as victims of the patriarchy too.
The problem is the patriarchy just as much as the problem is men. While there are women who uphold the patriarchy, we cannot dismiss how men never fail to uphold every systems and means to oppress and control women. No,they never ever miss it.
Men invented and uphold these religions and traditions that harm women so badly and they refuse to trash them. Men will do everything in their power to subdue women and keep us under their feet.
How is the problem not men? How are we absolving them of these very much intentional acts?
The world is built around men and for men,like men are the default and when we talk about feminsms and women's rights especially in a country like men,me get worked up, they shun you, they threaten us,they swear that women have to remain under men, that men have to dominate, that women should not be leaders and they frustrate women out of every leadership position, yet the problem is not men???
Are you sure?
Because everyday I see men killing women and other men supporting the men in very subtle ways while victim blaming the women who lost their lives.
Everyday I see men boldly rxpe children and women in this country, oh, remember the university Dean? female students had to protest and demand that the school fire him because he was always rxping his female students? Remember?
Remember the family rapist and pedophile and the ones in your community whom everyone knows about and still treats him nicely?
The school boys who gangrxped and sexually assaulted their clasmattess?
The problem is who? not men? Of course it's men.
3. stop stifling your anger.
People care more about women’s angry reactions to male violence than they care about the thousands of women that men kill every day. They don’t care about women they only care about making men feel comfortable. It’s the only reason why you could just finish talking about male violence towards women and somebody will come to you and say "Stop generalizing, it’s not all men, you are making men look bad".
Why is the image of men much more important than women's lives? Why? Why do they think or feel the need to announce that good men still exists when we talk about a woman being killed every 11 minutes by a man?
Do you remember when people saw women's deadbodies on the streets and they'd hiss and walk away saying "na ashawo",meaning she's a prostitute.
They say this in the most demeaning way, as if being a prostitute means being murdered is justified.
In my head, I can’t stop thinking of how any man can kill me, dump my body in any street, and walk free because misogyny affords him that right.
As usual in my country, the police will do nothing, the people will do nothing, nobody will do shit because i am nothing, i am a thing in a patrichal society. They will call me a prostitute. As if being a prostitute means that its a okay for me to be murdered.
Looking at the rate at which men kill women in this country, I just know that femicide continues nobody cares about women.
If a man is murdered, there is always follow up, always. The police must be involved, poeple will care and run around and do something at least. If a man is mudrered in a hotel, something must happen.
If a woman is murdered in the same hotel people will mock the dead, call her ashawo and move on.
As women, we are not human being enough, we are merely existsing for male pleasure and needs, to be men's properties and so when men kill us, they just sweep it under the carpet and blame us for being dead.
And with all of this, do you know who people hate the most? Not the killers, not the protectors of the killers, not the patriarchy, not the men, but the women who are angry at men’s wickedness and violence towards women.
People will cover their rapist and murderer family members but will never fail to hate the women who say "I hate men".
These are some of the reasons you should be angry. They call you a misandrist? Let them. Loving your oppressor is a sign of Stockholm syndrome. They call you an angry bitter woman? Let them.
Why are they not angry? It's a shame that they are not angry, as African Feminists feminists, as a person, a woman who is even slightly aware of all the misogyny we have to experience even before we were born, you should be angry. You should be raging, and you should accept that it is okay to be angry because of all the injustice you and your kind face every day. You should burn with anger.
4. Stop giving fucks about people who do not give the same about you.
One thing I am beginning to learn and understand is that there are no "our problems" or "our fights" when it comes to women and men as classes that exist on this planet.
I have learned to stop giving fucks about men's problems, the same way they never care about womens problems.
When it's a man problem, it becomes everybody's problem, it becomes "our" problem. But when it's a women's problem, we get blamed, mocked, and ignored. Women's problem never gets attention and is never taken seriously.
In 2020, there was a rape epidemic, men went off, raping even their own daughters, there was also heightened level of domestic violence as men would beat their wives to rape them and sometimes killed the women.
There was a protest against rape and male violence against women, but did anyone hear much about it? No.
Even though this was a national problem, it was never taken seriously, you know why? because as usual, woman's problem are never taken as important.
But, the same year, a man got killed by the police and it became everybody’s problem.
Protests started, a feminist organization handled logistics and funds, and women all over the country were protesting with men who were the primary victim of police brutality , and on the protest ground men were still sexually harassing women.
When men protest, women join them. When women protest, men sit back , act unconcerned and mock us.
If there's one thing I happily found this year, it's "misandry" and as the day goes by I am beginning to see that women have to stop being the savior of the world.
Stop giving fucks about people who do not give fucks about you.
Men are a menace, from teenagehood to adulthood, especially when they are in a group, they never fail to inflict pain and trauma.
In every deadly situation,in every societal problem, men never fail to prove that "men are protectors" is a big fucking lie.
Whether it is war or homelessness, or systemic inequality, men will never fail to inflict extra trauma on the women around them.
You'll be there seeing them as human beings, thinking you are all going through the same pain, they be there seeing you as a property to conquer, as a walking vaginas and as a tool to get off on.
During war, soldiers rxpe women and female soldiers.
In hospitals, male doctors sexually abuse their female counterpart.
If you ever go homeless, th homeless men around you will inflict pain on you.
When women did #Endsars protest with them, they still SA'd us.
This is why I believe that forming solidarity with men or believing that "we are together" is the most stupid thing a woman can do.
I believe that something is wrong with men and until they fix themselves, they don't see you as human. They don't like you. They will watch their hommies harm you and they'll tell you to shake it off and stop taking things too seriously.
Men are not your protectors. They are women's predators.
When men protest, women join them. When women protest, men sit back , act unconcerned and mock us.
5. It's okay to hate poeple who kill you.
Finding out about the 4B South Korean movement gave me chills. I found it beautiful and revolutionary what those women are doing, staying away from men, not dating, marrying, or having sex with men, and not having children.
In a world that treats women like trash even though it depends on us to grow human population and hold down societies, women choosing to stay away from their oppressors should be a very well expected and normal response.
It's okay to want to stay away from men, it's okay to cut them off from having access to you, it's okay to hate them even, it's okay to refuse birthing the very people who are socialized to hate your existence.
It is okay to hate the poeple who kill you.
In conclusion,
As a feminist, you have to know that cuddling men and acting all civil will not stop men and have never stopped them from harming women. Anger is a tool, stop stifling yours, and if you do not hate men, you should know not to hate on women for hating men because with all we experience in this world, we should have set the world ablaze already.
