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TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-04-12
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc
my brother cheeks and my best friend ikea part of the organized and see and so when they asked me to come I couldn't seem to but I'm so happy to be here was a fantastic team of people who care about Africa I feel so humbled and sue happy you hear and I also am tool that the most beautiful most amazing little girl in the walls in
the audience I mean it's come see up to cheer and I won't have to stand up to my knees Nnamdi so I would like to start by telling about one of my greatest friends Oklahoma Monday with the because I lived on my street I looked up to me like a Big Brother if I liked a boy I would ask the column as opinion okay my died
in the notorious release the plane crash in Nigeria in December two thousand and five almost exactly seven years ago close the person I could argue with laugh with surely Tollefson he was also the first person to call me a feminist I was about fourteen we were in his house arguing both of us bristling with half knowledge address I don't remember what this particular argument was about
but I remember that as I argued and argued diploma looked at me and said you know you're a feminist it was not a compliment I could tell from his tune the theme tune that you would use to see something like your support of terrorism I did not know exactly what this would feminist and I did not want diplomats in new that I did not know so
I brushed it aside and I continue to argue and the first thing I plan to do when I go to listen look up the word feminist now fast forward through some years later I wrote a novel about a man who among other things beats his wife and whose story doesn't end very well what I was promoting the lovely Nigeria journalists a nice well meaning man told
me he wanted to advise me and for the Nigerians here I'm filled world familiar with how create help pick out people I think even solicited advice he told me that people were saying that my novel was feminist and his advice to me and you're shaking his head sadly at school was that I should never call myself a feminist because feminists are women who are unhappy because
they cannot find husband so I decided to call myself a happy feminist then on academic Canadian woman told me that feminism was not a culture that feminism was in Africa and that I was calling myself a feminist because I had been corrupted by western books which amused me because a lot of my early reading was decidedly on feminist I think I must have read every single
meal some boon romance published before I was sixteen I need some I tried to read those books called the feminist classic I get bored I really struggle to finish them but anyway since feminism was on African I decided I would not call myself a happy African feminists at some point I was unhappy African feminist who does not heats man and who likes lip gloss on who
wears high heels for herself but not for men of course a lot of this with tongue in cheek but that what feminists who have you with baggage negative baggage he hates ma'am you he dries you hate African culture that sort of thing now here's a story from my childhood when I was in primary school but you just said at the beginning of term that should give
the classic test and what about the highest school would be the cost money not because money is always a big he'll if you were caught someone it so you got to write down the names of noise me because which was heavy enough power and it soon bought my teacher would also give you a keyed to hold in your hands while you walked around on patrol the
class with noise me now of course you are not actually on the outside but it was an exciting prospect for the nine year old me I very much wanted to view the class one and I got the highest score on the test then to my surprise my teacher said that the money to have to be a boy chef Watson to make that clear alea because she
assumed it was obvious a boy had the second highest score on the test than he the minutes of now what was even more interesting about this is that the boy was this until school who have no interest in while I was but I was female and he was meal begin the class when and I've never forgotten that and so I often make the mistake of thinking
that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else not take my dear friend you example you is a brilliant progressive man and we would have conversations and he would tell me I don't know what you mean by things been different a harder for women maybe the past but not now I didn't understand how do we could not see what seems then
one evening in legal sue and I went out with friends people here who are familiar with legal us there's that wonderful legals fixed spring cleaning of energetic man who hung around outside establishments and very dramatically help you park your car I was impressed with the particular theatrics of the man who founded the parking sports that's even and so as we were leaving I decided to give
him a tip I open my bag put my hand inside my bag brought up my money that I had and from doing my work and I give it to the man and he this man who was very grateful I'm very happy so the money from me looked across at UWI and said thank you stop you eat you we looked at me surprised and asked YC thanking
me I didn't give him the money then I saw realization dawn Louise feet the man believed it was of ammonia had had ultimately keep and ultimately come from you we if you use a man the men and women are different we have different hormones with different sexual dance with different biological abilities women can have babies mankind at least not yet men have to stitch through an
and I general physically stronger than women that's slightly more women than men in the world about fifty two percent of the world's population is female but most of the positions of power and prestige occupied by men relief Kenyan Nobel peace laureates one very much I put it simply and well when she said the higher you go fewer women they are in the recent US elections we
kept hearing of the Lilly Ledbetter hello and if we go beyond the nicely and Victor it's even name of the law it was really about a man and a woman doing the same job being equally qualified and the man being paid more because he's a man so in a literal way man rule the world and this made sense a thousand years ago because human beings lived
then in the world in which physical strength was the most important action be survival a physically strong that person was more likely to lead and many general the stronger of course that many except what city we live in a vastly friend Wold the person more likely to lead is not the the klystron that person because the more creative person the more intelligent person the more innovative
person and then no hormones for those attributes a mind is as likely as the woman to be Telligent to be creative to be innovative we have evolved but it seems to me that our ideas of gender have not civil some weeks ago I walked into the lobby of one of the best names you and hotels I thought about leaving the hotel but I thought I probly
shouldn't and a guard at the entrance stopped me and asked me annoying question because the automatic assumption is that a ninety one female walking toward saloons a sex worker and by the way why do these hotels focus on dispensable supply rather than the demand for sex what has illegals I cannot go alluding to many Rick's usable baza clubs they just don't let you in if your
woman alone you have to be accompanied by a man each time I walk into an Asian restaurant with a man the waiter greets the mine and ignores me the waiters are products and this on women are like yes the which is a product of a society that that men are more important than women and I know the way so don't intend any harm but it is
one thing to know intellectually important effect Felix emotionally each time they ignore me I feel invisible I feel upset I want to tell them that I am just as humanist Amman them just as a war the about knowledge meant these are little things that sometimes it's the little things that stings and most not long ago I was an article about what it means to be young
and female illegals and an acquaintance told me so angry of course it was angry vannatter I am angry Jen doesn't functions to Dee is a grieving justice we should all be angry and has a long history of banking about positive change but in addition to being angry and also who because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to make and remake themselves for the
better gender muscles everywhere in the world but I want to focus in Nigeria and on African general because it is wearing no because that is where my heart is and I would like to dates ask but we begin to dream about and plan for different Wold of pharaoh Wold the want of happier man and happier women who are true to themselves and this is how to
stop it we must reside taught us to we must also resolve sons we do a great disservice to boys and how we raise them stifle the humanity of boys we define masculinity in a very narrow we Muscatine's because this hide small cage I would put boys aside the key teach boys to be afraid of fear we teach boys to be afraid of weakness of vulnerability teach
them to mask their true selves because we have to be in nineteen ESP hi to model it's a country school a boy and a girl both of them seen it does both of them with the same amount of pocket money would go out and that the boy would be expected always to pee prove his masculinity and yet we wonder why boys are more likely to steal
money from their parents what if both boys and girls were raised not link masculinity with what is the attitude was not the boy house to pick but rather whoever has more she P. now of course because of the historical advantage it is mostly men who will have more today but if we start raising children differently then in fifty years in a hundred years boys will no
longer have pressure of having to prove this masculinity but by far the worst thing we do two meals by making them feel that they have to be hired is that we leave them with very fragile egos the more hide mine Amman feels compelled to be the week cut his ego is and then we do a much greater disservice to girls because we raise them for kisa
to the fragile egos of men it seems goes to shrink themselves to make themselves smaller we say to girls you can have ambition but not too much you should aim to be successful but not so successful otherwise you would threaten the man few of the bread would not in your relationship with a man you have to pretend that you're not especially in public otherwise you will
even ask you but what if you question the premise itself why should a woman success your threats to a man what if we decide to simply dispose of that ward and I don't think there's an English what I dislike more than emasculation if I'd you know playing tons once asked me if I was worried that men would be intimidated by me I was not worried at
all fuck that had not occurred to me to be worried because a man who'd been to be deterred by knees exactly the kind of man I would have no interest you know I was I was really because I am female I'm expected to aspire to manage I'm expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that manages the most import a marriage kind be good
can be a source of Joe I a lot of fun mutual support but why do we teach girls to spats imagine we don't teach boys the same I knew a woman who decided to sell her house because she didn't want him to be data mined who might marry I know I'm unmarried woman in Nigeria who when she goes to conferences was a wedding ring because according
to how she wants that all the participants in the conference I respect I know young women who are under so much pressure from family from friends even from work to get my the push to make terrible choice a woman of a certain age who is unmarried our society teaches see it as a deep personal feel you and a man to certain ages and married we just
think yes I'll come around to making his pick it's easy for us to see what women can just say no to all of this but the reality is more difficult and more complex we also shoot beams we internalize ideas on my socialization even the language we use and talking about marriage and relationship in the streets this the language of marriage is often a language of ownership
rather than on the language of partnership we use the ward respects to mean something a woman shows a man but often not something a man shows a woman both men and women in Nigeria will see this is an expression I'm very amused by I did it for peace in my marriage now when menses because usually about something that they should not be doing anyway so that
sometimes the seats of their friend it's something to say to the fans in a kind of funky exasperated we you know something that ultimately proves how masculine the I. how need at how loved all my wife said I come with the club every night so for peace in my marriage I do would only on weekends now when a woman says I did it for in my
marriage his unit talking about having giving up job dream a career we teach females that in relationships compromise is what women do we raise goes to see told us competitors not foot jobs off accomplishments which I think could be a good thing that tension of man with few skills of the cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are if we have sons we don't
mind doing about her son's girlfriend's but I don't have boyfriends got four bit but of course when the time is right we expect Google to bring about the perfect man to be the husbands we put a list girls we praise girls for virginity we don't freeze boys with a and it's always made me wonder how exactly this is suppose the walkout because we don't when the
look of Virginia usually a process that involves recently a young woman gone Greek to the university yeah some of us know about that other response of many young Nigerians both male and female something along the lines of this yes rape is wrong what what is the golden rule in doing in a room with four boys now if we come forgets the horrible in humanity of that
response these Nigerians have been reduced to think of women as inherently guilty I have been wasted specs so little of man but the idea of man of suffrage beans without any control he somehow except we teach girl she close your legs cover yourself we make them feel as though by being born female they already guilty of something a so girls grew up to be women you