Equalizing the game

They say there is no place like home. But what happens when home becomes hell and the heat gets unbearable? What do we call a place and a space that should know peace but instead know the many pieces of broken hearts?

What do we say and do when marriage, that most sacred of gifts and institutions, becomes a sword, a guilt trip and a museum of distant memories and dead emotions?

What do we say when the society unwittingly but invariably empowers the fists of men to feast on women? Ours is a patriarchal society where it has become our bounden duty to preach that boy are superior to girls, and men to women.

Ours is a patriarchal society where we preach that boy are more important than girls, and that while a man is the prince of the house, his wife is his property – worse still, one that is dispensable and disposable.

Thus, when the fists begin to feast, when the horror stories begin to spill out, we get horrified. But our horrors are caveated, punctuated by our own hypocrisies.

“There is no marriage without challenges,” we tell the woman whose face is swollen and lips torn apart.

“He will change with time,” we tell another one who wears bruises from yet more beating.

“You have to stay because of the children,” we tell the woman who just miscarried a pregnancy because her husband hit her so hard.

Thus, the vicious cycle continues, sucking the malignant merry-go round into a feeding frenzy. When death begins to wear the garments of marriage, we belatedly and reluctantly say, “You can and should walk away.”

But do we actually support women to talk about their experiences and walk away from abusive relationships? Have we created a culture of support for women that can and should walk away? Do we empower women that walk away to support themselves after they walk away from the killers who masquerade as lovers?

What about the fangs we call tongues? Do we watch what we say so that we can refrain from reinforcing the culture of shame that keeps many women trapped in cycles of violence.

Until we offer as sauce to the goose that which is sauce for the gander; until we create a culture of equality; until we leave those who abuse women in any way in no doubt whatsoever that the game has been equalized, we will continue to be inundated by the stories of women killed by killers who pose as lovers.

It is time. There is no doubt that it is time we bade goodbye to all those harmful practices and beliefs that invidiously come alive only when the subject is women. It does not matter that they are ancient. They are antiquated. They are not cast in stone and must be changed.

Because they reinforce the chains that bind women, they are obnoxious, odious, repugnant and reprehensible. As a matter of urgency, they must bear the condemnation of all those who are interested in creating a fair society.

If there are those who insist that the such horrific customs and traditions cannot be changed, then by all means let them also apply to them so that that which binds Celestina can also bind Celestine.

We must go back to our laws and once we ensure that the legal framework to prohibit and severely punish all acts of violence against women is in place, we must turn our attention to the enforcement of those laws.

The Violence Against Persons Act remain a watershed legislation. It must be enforced to the letter just as it must also find uniform domestication across every state in Nigeria.

The Federal High Court recently order the implementation of the National Gender Policy which prescribes that 35 percent of appointments should go to women. That judgment must be enforced.

We must also ramp up the pressure on the legislators who always contrive to throw out bills seeking equality for women from the National Assembly.

We must all do more because until every woman and girl in Nigeria are safe everywhere, we will remain responsible, or irresponsible as the case may be.

 

 

 

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com

 

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