Onobule: A non feminist’s response to feminism
Please do not force it down my throat.
Do not make me chug the bitter dregs of this thing that you have defined in your selfish need to be free of your duties and responsibilities.
This thing that you have defined in your haze of monotony; you tell yourself that it is going to help you break free, your prison break in living color featuring you as the lead character and the villain at the same time, this prison that you built with your own hands.
Oh, I know that you will say,
“But I did not build this prison, I came here and was made to stay in it.”
But you made the blocks they used to build it. You fetched the water and mixed the cement and sat down as they made the house you were going to live in, the home that you now call prison.
Please spare me your rabid details of how you have suffered. We have all suffered but we do not write songs about it or splash the details of our suffering on the front pages of every magazine that wants to milk us dry for sales.
You choose to shout it from the rooftops and mountains, that you have been set free and that you hold the torch of illumination for all of us. But who told you that we are slaves? That we are in darkness?
Who told you Onobule, that we are unhappy?
Who told you that our homes are prisons?
Who?
Who told you that we want to contend for space in a world where there is enough space for everyone?
Who told you that platforms were needed? That the foundations that were already in place were built wrongly?
You have the answer, but we did not have a question to begin with.
Why do you make so much noise?
You have looked at your breasts, once pert and full of life, and seen them now as drooping banana trees hanging low with the weight of banana fruit.
You have looked at your curves, soft and round curves and seen flabby skin and stretch marks.
You have looked at your children, gangly children in the cusp of adulthood, skidding constantly on the disco floor of self-discovery and you have seen demons that have drunk the cup of your youth and beauty to the last drop.
And for this, you have picked up arms.
You have herded your children into the home you now call prison and you have set it ablaze with them in it. Their dying screams make you scream loud with the conviction that you free…that you are free!
We have watched you dance madly in the village square, where you have bared your nakedness for all to see.
We have wept for you as you have spoken your nonsense about seeing the light, about becoming like man.
We have tried to cover you up but you will not let us.
So, we have returned to our homes.
We have looked into the same mirror you did and have seen breasts that suckled a dangerous generation of men and women.
We have looked into the mirror and seen the battle scars of this life that we live. Like proud warriors, we carry our scars. They will tell our stories for years to come. That we came, we saw, we conquered.
We have looked into the mirror and seen ourselves…
And we have turned away with no hate in our hearts.
We have gone to sleep with our children and our husbands, and left you mumbling your message in the glow of the village moonlight.
- Onobule (Means “Woman” in Igala language, one of the many languages spoken in Kogi state, Nigeria
