Nneoma Sally 10 months ago

@Barbiesally 8 min read Write a comment #creative-writing

Female Equity

What's the difference between feminism and female equity? With time comes change. I define the modern world as the distinct rise in current trends. In my modern world, nothing current stays current.

There is always growth, no matter how minute or whenever there is a current trend. And my discussion for today is female equity. Times have changed, but you will ask, what do I mean by female equity? Well, why don't you read on and get the gist of it? As I said, no current trend remains current for long. What do I mean by that? I would like to define this world as a female. You see, everywhere we are, there is a female among us. So, what are females?

According to Oxford languages (google's English dictionary), a female is of or denotes the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes, and Wikipedia defines a female as the sex of an organism that produces the large non-mobile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. It also goes further to say that a female has larger gametes than a male and that females and males are the results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes, unlike isogamy, where they are the same size.

Now, many of you would not understand the big grammar, but I will break it down; a female is simply an organism or animal that is capable of producing eggs. If you can't produce eggs, you are typically not a female, and that's that. For a while, when my country was still a seedling, females were treated differently and apart from men.

The history of female distinction comes from the culture of our land. In Nigeria, we are made up of different tribes, and each tribe has its culture that defines them; though these cultures are different, there is a similarity. Females are not allowed in most things pertaining to a village. Men were known to be the head of the house, the decision maker, and the voice that everyone would listen to. At that time, we needed someone who would be a voice to the females who had no voice, and that's when Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti appeared.

Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was born in Abeokuta, southern Nigerian (now known as Ogun state), and she was one of the first females to attend Abeokuta Grammar school because back then, girls weren't allowed to go to school. She attended a finishing school for girls in Cheshire, England, and after that, she came home and worked as a teacher. You see, this simple woman gave a voice to those who don't have a voice.

Back then, local authorities imposed unfair price controls and taxes on market women as well as seizing rice from them under false pretenses. Chief Ransome-Kuti organized a group of women under the club Abeokuta Women's Union (AWU) and fought against the notion. It took a while, but Chief Ransome-Kuti was able to help this woman.

Why did I write so much about her? It's not because of how much of a strong figure she was nor how much work she had done in Nigeria. There are a lot of women who are figures I can point out, but in as much as she was the first woman who gave a voice to the voiceless women, she's also a woman who fought for female equity. Nowadays, people believe in feminism, which is typically the belief in full social, economic, and political equality for women (https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism).

Feminism is the order of the day. When a man tells his wife, "Please, prepare this meal. I will eat it after I take a siesta. Please, let it be hot." and he goes to bed. The wife would join the multitude of women fighting for feminism because the man wanted to sleep after he gave his wife orders on what to do as a wife. Please, wife, if you won't prepare his meal as a wife, then what job do you do as a wife? No matter how much women protest, write quotes, and pretend to be single because men are demanding, it doesn't change what God has placed in this world. We were born to assist men in their work. According to the Bible, we were taken from the man's rib because he said that he was lonely and he needed a partner. There is no such thing as gender equality. We shall never be equal to men, just as men shall never be equal to us. Does this drive me to what female equity is?

Female equity can be defined as a state in which fairness and justice are rendered to women based on their respective needs. Now, this is not the first time you have heard the word equity. Equity means fairness, impartiality, or justice. If females were treated with equal fairness as they do males, they wouldn't have been this word, feminism. Feminism came in because females felt mistreated by males, but the modern world has changed what that word means.

With time, the western world influenced Nigeria, and most times, Nigerians prefer what the western world would go for, like feminism. In my world, feminism can only be enforced if a husband doesn't do house chores or if a husband sleeps all day without helping his wife in the kitchen after he comes back from work. Or maybe during school, the females swept and the boys didn't, but those females forgot that the males would be weeding the farm every week.

My modern world would only remember feminism if they feel like things don't go their way or if they perceive that this is wrong because it's a male that is doing it. I am pushing for female equity because females have forgotten their roles. Now, I wouldn't say that you should get married very quickly or succumb to the wimps of any man, no! If you are married, ma, respect your husband. Support him and let him know if you think this is wrong. See his point of view and solve the issue between yourselves, and don't enforce feminism on something that could be easily solved. Sister, if a man insults you on your attire (wearing trousers), please do not enforce feminism on him. You can choose to ignore him or tell him something that will not involve feminism. Females are not confined to working in the kitchen forever or being housewives forever, but those are part of our work as females. The modern world changes every day, and we need to change with it but conform to the positive change and ignore or learn from the negative change.